Henry William Banks Davis (1833–1914)

Henry William Banks Davis (1833–1914), painted in 1904, portrays the British animal and landscape painter known primarily for his paintings of sheep in upland landscapes. Davis was a Royal Academician and a respected figure in the Victorian landscape tradition, though less celebrated than his contemporaries working in more fashionable styles. Alma-Tadema, approaching seventy at this date, was producing fewer portraits but continuing to execute them for close professional colleagues within the Academy. The Royal Academy of Arts holds this canvas, adding it to a set of institutional portraits of members that documented the Academy's collective professional identity. Davis's identity as a landscape and animal painter rather than an Italianate classicist provides an interesting contrast with his portraitist's exclusively archaeological subject matter.

Oil on canvas with Alma-Tadema's late-career assurance in portraiture. The handling by 1904 is broader and less elaborately detailed than his 1870s work, reflecting a relaxed, less demonstrative approach to technique appropriate to the quiet dignity of professional portraiture.