English: John Russell, R.A. (1745 - 1806) Hull

The sitter was the elder daughter of William Western Hugessen of Provender and his wife Thomazine Honywood. On 23rd March 1779 at the young age of 21 she married Joseph Banks, who was by then President of the Royal Society and living with his sister in 32 Soho Square. Dorothea had a good natured temperament and got on very well with her sister in law Sarah Sophia. Banks and his new wife set about looking for a suitable country house near London, and bought a house in Isleworth called Spring Grove, a few miles beyond Kew, where they both greatly enjoyed its garden and where Dorothea established a dairy. She was a keen collector of porcelain, ‘a little old-china mad’ in the words of her husband, and she benefitted from his connections with Chinese scholars such as George Staunton and the superintendent of the factory in Canton, David Lance.

This portrait was given by the sitter to Francis Filmer, her guardian, who was the son of Sir Edward Filmer of East Sutton, Kent. Following his death it passed back to the family.