Portrait of a Woman

Artist John Smart (English, 1741 - 1811)

Date1772

MediumWatercolor on ivory; Gilt copper alloy case

DimensionsSight: 1 5/8 × 1 3/8 inches (4.13 × 3.49 cm)
Framed: 2 × 1 1/2 inches (5.08 × 3.81 cm)

Credit LineGift of the Starr Foundation, Inc.

Object numberF65-41/13

InscribedInscribed on recto, lower left: "J.S. / 1772."

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionPortrait miniature of a woman with powdered hair wearing a pink gown before a gray-brown background.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 98, as Unknown Lady.

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.

Gallery Label

This sitter’s ribbon-slashed sleeves and pearl-encrusted neckline recall those worn by sitters in court painter Anthony Van Dyck’s (Flemish, 1599–1641) 1600s portraits. Worn during the 1700s at masquerade balls, these fashions evoked nostalgia for an earlier time.

Provenance

Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 1965;

Their gift to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1965.

Published References

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 98, p. 38, (repro.), as Unknown Lady.

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “John Smart, Portrait of a Woman, 1772,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1530.

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