Portrait of a Man

Jeffery Ludlam Barton Whitehead (1831–1915), Kent, England, by January 6, 1879–at least 1903 [1];

Unknown owner, Vienna, by March 26, 1917 [2];

Unknown owner’s sale, Sammlung von Miniaturbildnissen erster Meister des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, Albert Kende, Vienna, March 26, 1917, lot 32, as Porträt des Lord Exmouth;

Albert Leopold Lindheimer (1871–1938), Frankfurt, Germany, by May 1924 [3];

Unknown owner, London, by March 31, 1954 [4];

Purchased from the unknown owner’s sale, Objects of Art and Vertu, Miniatures, Watches, Musical Instruments, and Firearms and Weapons, Christie’s, London, March 31, 1954, lot 32, as Portrait of Admiral Lord Exmouth, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1954–1965 [5];

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

Notes

[1] Whitehead exhibited the miniature at the Royal Academy of Arts’ Winter Exhibition in 1879. And later, the miniature is listed in collection of Whitehead in Joshua James Foster, Miniature Painters: British and Foreign (London: Dickinsons, 1903). There was a posthumous sale of Whitehead’s miniatures in Collection of Objects of Art and Vertu Formed by Jeffery Whitehead, Esq., Christie’s, London, August 4–5, 9–11, 1915, but there is no specific reference to this portrait in the sales catalogue.

[2] The 1917 sales catalogue says, “Aus dem besitze eines bekannten wiener sammlers” (From the collection of a well-known Viennese collector).

[3] Lindheimer exhibited the miniature at Internationale Miniaturen-Austellung, Albertina, Vienna, from May to June 1924. It did not appear in his 1928 sale, Bedeutende Gemälde des 16. bis 19. Jahrhunderts; Farbstiche des 18. Jahrhunderts aus dem Besitze einer bekannten Wiener Hofburgschauspielerin; Miniaturen ersten Ranges aus den Sammlungen Albert Lindheimer, Frankfurt (Vienna: Leo Schidlof Kunstauktionshaus, March 28–29, 1928). Lindheimer was a Jewish merchant and collector, who, with his wife, founded “Adele und Albert Leopold Lindheimer-Stiftung für erholungsbedürftige Kinder aller Konfessionen” in 1918. His wife Adele Rosy Lindheimer (née Posen, b. 1875) died in London in 1965.

Another John Smart miniature previously in the Starr Collection was in the collection of Jeffery Whitehead, reproduced in Foster’s Miniature Painters (1901), and exhibited at the Albertina (1924). See John Smart, Portrait of a Boy, 1780, https://www.nelson-atkins.org/starrsupp/Other-Locations/4800/.

[4] “Different Properties” sold lots 15–118 in Objects of Art and Vertu, Miniatures, Watches, Musical Instruments, and Firearms and Weapons, Christie’s, London, March 31, 1954.

[5] Archival research has shown that Leggatt Brothers served as purchasing agents for the Starrs. See correspondence between Betty Hogg and Martha Jane Starr, May 15 and June 3, 1950, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.