Henry Bunbury, Esq.

Date1789

After work by Sir Thomas Lawrence

Engraver Thomas Ryder 1746 - 1810

Artist/Maker Simon Watts fl. 1767 - 1787

OriginEngland, London

MediumStipple engraving and etching

DimensionsOverall: 17 × 13 1/4in. (43.2 × 33.7cm)
Other (Plate): 16 3/8 × 12 3/4in. (41.6 × 32.4cm)

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1975-87

DescriptionOn either side of oval (left to right): "Lawrence pinx.t" "Ryder Sculp.t"
Lower margin reads: "HENRY BUNBURY Esq./ London, Published as the act directs 24 Apr. 1789 by S. Watts No. 28 Walcot Place, Lambeth/ & to be had at T. Ryder's No. 34 Great Titchfield St."Label TextHenry William Bunbury was an English caricaturist, amateur draftsmen whose drawings were engraved into satirical prints by the Darlys, James Bretherton, and Dickinson. He was the second son of Sir William Bunbury, 5th Baronet of Mildenhall Suffolk and was educated at Westminster and Cambridge. He created caricatures of his friends, acquaintances, and people he encountered, many of them members of England's fashionable elite, artists, playwrights, writers, and other luminaries of London society including Oliver Goldsmith, Sir Joseph Banks, and Horace Walpole. In this engraved portrait after the work of portraitist Sir Thomas Lawrence, he holds one of his most famous works as a caricaturist "A Long Minuet as Danced at Bath" which was published as an engraving in 1787. The original drawing for the work was seven feet long and lambasts the manners, expression, dress, deportment, and attitudes of a variety of dancing couples.ProvenanceBefore 1975, R. E. Lewis [1923-2005] (San Rafael, CA); 1975-present, purchased by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, VA).