Portrait of a Woman

Artist John Smart (English, 1741 - 1811)

Dateca. 1780

MediumWatercolor and graphite on laid paper; Modern gilt frame

DimensionsSight: 2 3/16 × 1 15/16 inches (5.56 × 4.92 cm)
Sheet: 2 1/2 × 2 1/4 inches (6.35 × 5.72 cm)
Framed: 5 × 4 1/2 inches (12.7 × 11.43 cm)

Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. John W. Starr and the Starr Foundation, Inc.

Object numberF58-60/140

InscribedNone

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionPortrait miniature of a woman with powdered hair whose clothing is rapidly sketched, with the paper support used as the background.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

John Smart: Virtuoso in Miniature, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, December 21, 2024–January 4, 2026, no cat., as Portrait of a Woman.

Provenance

John Smart (1741–1811), London, by around 1783–1811;

By descent to his son, John James Smart (1805–1870), London, 1811–1870;

By descent to his daughter, Mary Ann Bose (née Smart, 1856–1934), Edinburgh, 1870–1934;

By descent to her son, William Henry Bose (1875–1957), London, 1934–1937;

Sold at his sale, Sketches and Studies for Miniature Portraits by John Smart, Christie’s, London, February 15, 1937, lot 23, as Portrait of a Lady;

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.

Published References

Sketches and Studies for Miniature Portraits by John Smart (London: Christie’s, February 15, 1937), 5.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 265, as Portrait of a Lady (sketch).

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 146, p. 51, (repro.), as Unknown Lady.

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “John Smart, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1780,” 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. 4, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2025), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1614.

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