Portrait of a Girl, Possibly Maria Burroughs

Artist John Smart (English, 1741 - 1811)

Date1797

MediumWatercolor on ivory; Gilt copper alloy case with brightwork bezel, braided hair in back

DimensionsSight: 2 1/16 × 1 9/16 inches (5.24 × 3.97 cm)
Framed: 2 1/4 × 1 3/4 inches (5.72 × 4.45 cm)

Credit LineGift of the Starr Foundation, Inc.

Object numberF65-41/38

InscribedInscribed on recto, lower left: "JS / 1797".

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionPortrait miniature of a girl with natural hair wearing a white gown before a gray 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. 130, as Unknown Young Girl.

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 Girl, Possibly Maria Burroughs.

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. 130, p. 46, (repro.), as Unknown Young Girl.

Maggie Keenan, “John Smart, Portrait of a Girl, Possibly Maria Burroughs, 1797,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1608.

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