Portrait of a Man
Framed: 1 1/2 × 1 3/8 × 1/8 inches (3.81 × 3.49 × 0.32 cm)
With an unknown owner, by 1958 [1];
Purchased from the unknown owner’s sale, English Portrait Miniatures, Fine Gold Boxes, Watches, and Objects of Vertu, Sotheby’s, London, November 3, 1958, lot 33, as Miniature of a Man, by Hammond, 1958 [2];
Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 1958;
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1958.
Notes
[1] According to the 1958 sales catalogue, “Various Properties” sold lots 25–51.
[2] According to the lot description, “Samuel Collins. An interesting Miniature of a Man by Samuel Collins, signed in full and dated 1750, with shoulders turned slightly sinister, gaze directed at spectator, wearing a dove-grey coat with silver braid, his hair en queue, against a grey background, 1 3/8 in. This documentary miniature confirms the fact that Collins was a very good miniaturist, and also helps to differentiate between his work and that of Samuel Cotes.” A price list attached to the sales catalogue lists “Hammond” as the buyer.
An annotated sales catalogue is located at University of Missouri-Kansas City, Miller Nichols Library. The annotations are most likely by Mr. or Mrs. Starr. The annotations include a slash next to this lot number.
Catalogue of English Portrait Miniatures, Fine Gold Boxes, Watches, and Objects of Vertu (London: Sotheby’s, November 3, 1958), 9, as Miniature of a Man.
Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 46, p. 20, (repro.), as Unknown Man.
Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “Samuel Collins, Portrait of a Man, 1759,” catalogue entry in Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, Blythe Sobol, and Maggie Keenan, The Starr Collection of Portrait Miniatures, 1500–1850: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, vol. 2, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1312.
