Portrait of a Woman

A member of the Gutekunst family, probably Otto Charles Henry Gutekunst (German, ca. 1865–1946), London [1];

Possibly with Paul and Dominic Colnaghi and Company, London, by 1894 [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] A label formerly affixed to the verso of the object reads, “Gutekunst Collect.” Otto Charles Henry Gutekunst and Richard Gutekunst were the sons of Heinrich Gutekunst (1833–1914), an auctioneer from Stuttgart. Otto was a German art dealer, who then became a naturalized British citizen and lived in London.

[2] In 1894, Otto Gutekunst and his business partner Edmond Deprez joined the Paul and Dominic Colnaghi and Company, London. See “P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., Ltd.,” Natinonal Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.703.html. Gutekunst retired in 1939 and died eight years later.

Gutekunst owned numerous John Downman (English, 1750–1824) pastels and watercolors, for example, which then passed into Colnaghi’s hands; see provenance for Downman, Portrait of an Admiral (1788; British Museum, London, 1967,1014.193, https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1967-1014-193) and Portrait of a Lady (1785; British Museum, 1967,1014.192, https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1967-1014-192). The present miniature by Cosway may have been sold by Colnaghi after Gutekunst’s death in 1946. According to Ben Taylor, Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, the Colnaghi records only go back as far as 1911. The only Cosway in these records was a portrait of a young gentleman in a green coat, acquired by Colnaghi in 1929. See correspondence between Maggie Keenan, NAMA, and Ben Taylor, Waddesdon Manor, October 20, 2023, NAMA curatorial files.