Sarah Sophia Banks’s guide to her ‘Ceremonies &c p = print’ (PhD Placement)
Sarah Sophia Banks’s guide to her ‘Ceremonies &c p = print’ (PhD Placement)
Sarah Sophia Banks’s guide to her ‘Ceremonies &c p = print’ (PhD Placement)
Extensive materials collected by Sarah Sophia Banks (1744-1818), one of the most important antiquarian collectors of her time, are now divided across the British Library and Prints and Drawings and Coins and Medals at the British Museum. Varying departmental and institutional interests and practicalities have impacted their visibility, and the focus of scholarship to date has been on the holdings at the Museum and her prints and ephemera in nine albums in the Library (L.R.301.h.3-11). At the Library her manuscripts have basic catalogue entries, but her books are generally not identified as such. Both are often illustrated by prints she inserted which remain unlisted. Banks wrote catalogues of her own collections and kept notes regarding provenance. One list held in printed books (460.d.13.) has been repeatedly noted (eg. Leis, 2013) while Add MS 6304 is an overlooked entry point to Banks’s library. This small manuscript contains a timeline of ceremonial events dated 1251 to 1818, referencing the books, magazines, manuscripts and particularly prints, marked ‘p’, in which they are described or depicted. It was Banks’s own tool, a reference guide she created to enable her to navigate her library. She includes notes of where the works listed were stored in her home, and in some cases where and how she acquired them. The student will transcribe folios 1-94 of this manuscript and start to match its entries with the books, prints and manuscripts as they are found in the Library and Museum today. This research could lead to re identifying collection items and enhancing catalogue records. They will work under the guidance of the supervisors and with support as needed from colleagues across the Library. The placement will initiate a larger research project on Banks planned by Felicity Myrone, Lead Curator for prints and drawings in the Western Heritage departments at the Library.
Collection Details