Portrait of Mrs. Brummell, Probably Mary Brummel
Framed: 3 1/4 × 2 5/16 inches (8.26 × 5.87 cm)
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John Smart—Miniaturist: 1741/2–1811, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, December 9, 1965–January 2, 1966, no cat., as Lady (pencil drawing).
The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 114, 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 Mrs. Brummell, Probably Mary Brummell.
Miniatures
are made of many layers stacked together to create the final object. Some, like
Portrait of Mrs. Brummell, include a portrait on the front, referred to
as recto, and another image on the back, or verso, such as a mourning scene in
this instance, hairwork, or initials.
The mourning scene on the portrait’s back shows a woman beside a broken column, symbolizing a life cut short. The weeping willow represents grief, rebirth, and everlasting life. Probably made as a memorial portrait, these symbols likely allude to the sitter’s untimely death.
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.
“Exhibitions: Portrait Miniatures by John Smart,” Gallery Events (The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) (December 1965): (repro.).
Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 114, p. 41, (repro.), as Unknown Lady.
Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “John Smart, Portrait of Mrs. Brummell, Probably Mary Brummell, 1785,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1570.
