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Date: Presumably 1820 or shortly thereafter
Format: Sketch.
Description: William Buckland and William Conybeare visit the naturalist Joseph Banks shortly before his death. The sketch is reproduced in The Life and Correspondence of William Buckland (1894) [archive.org, pg 39]. Very little description is given.
The text at the top is Taking Leave of Sir Joseph Banks. Joseph Banks was one of the foremost naturalists in Britain in the generation before Buckland, and his home in Soho was an informal meetinghouse for the era's naturalists. In the sketch, the elderly Banks is suffering from gout and cannot move much. Above Conybeare, on the doorway frame, is the text "[?] Geologorum Princeps", the latter part of which means "Princes of Geology". Buckland is encumbered with all manner of specimens, which spill out of his pockets. Shortly after this meeting, Conybeare and Buckland traveled together to Paris. Banks died while they were away.
August Breüner was a friend of Buckland's, and traveled with him. He was not a geologist so much as a hobbyist and collector, but he was made a fellow of the Geological Society of London.
Very little information exists for the artist, Breüner. See his entry on the biography page.
(See also entries for Conybeare and Buckland for more about them.)
Format: Sketch.
Description: William Buckland and William Conybeare visit the naturalist Joseph Banks shortly before his death. The sketch is reproduced in The Life and Correspondence of William Buckland (1894) [archive.org, pg 39]. Very little description is given.
The text at the top is Taking Leave of Sir Joseph Banks. Joseph Banks was one of the foremost naturalists in Britain in the generation before Buckland, and his home in Soho was an informal meetinghouse for the era's naturalists. In the sketch, the elderly Banks is suffering from gout and cannot move much. Above Conybeare, on the doorway frame, is the text "[?] Geologorum Princeps", the latter part of which means "Princes of Geology". Buckland is encumbered with all manner of specimens, which spill out of his pockets. Shortly after this meeting, Conybeare and Buckland traveled together to Paris. Banks died while they were away.
August Breüner was a friend of Buckland's, and traveled with him. He was not a geologist so much as a hobbyist and collector, but he was made a fellow of the Geological Society of London.
Very little information exists for the artist, Breüner. See his entry on the biography page.
(See also entries for Conybeare and Buckland for more about them.)
Sources & further discussion:
Similarly to the artist himself, very little information is readily available about the illustration. From googling, beside being in Life and Correspondence, the sketch appears to be referenced only in The Life of Sir Joseph Banks by Edward Smith (1911) [books.google.com (where it is misidentified as being Buckland's own); Fyfe and Lightman's Science in the Marketplace (2008) (to which the translation above is owed); and an article ("Dean Buckland" in the 1894 edition of The Leisure Hour [books.google.com]), which evocatively describes "the heads and tails of horrible saurians projecting from the professor's pockets."
Ultimately, all information traces back to:
Gordon, E. O. (1894). The life and correspondence of William Buckland, DD, FRS: sometime dean of Westminster, twice president of the Geological society, and first president of the British association. London: J. Murray. Link [archive.org]
Some information about Banks from:
Fyfe, A., & Lightman, B. (Eds.). (2007). Science in the marketplace: Nineteenth-century sites and experiences. University of Chicago Press.
Image yoinked from:
Gordon, E. O. (1894). The life and correspondence of William Buckland, DD, FRS: sometime dean of Westminster, twice president of the Geological society, and first president of the British association. London: J. Murray. pg 39. Link [archive.org]
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