Portrait of a Woman, Possibly Elizabeth Ramus
Framed: 1 13/16 × 1 9/16 inches (4.6 × 3.97 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.
The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 102, 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, Possibly Elizabeth Ramus.
Smart created intricately detailed and carefully observed portraits of wealthy merchants. His miniatures’ expressive features and richly textured clothing convey sitters’ personalities and circumstances. Smart often worked from sketches of his subjects, allowing him to produce later versions of his miniatures.
For much of his career, Smart was based in London, but in 1785, he moved to India. He painted there for ten years for both British employees of the East India Company and Indian royals. Works from this period are often inscribed with an “I”.
After his return to London, Smart used his meticulous style to paint larger miniatures, which were in fashion.
Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 1965 [1];
Their gift to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1965.
Notes
[1] The miniature’s label refers to William Frederick Danvers Smith (1868–1928), 2nd Viscount Hambleden, but this is a reference to George Romney’s 1777 portrait of Elizabeth Ramus, who bears resemblance to the sitter, once in the collection of the 2nd Viscount Hambleden.
Daphne Foskett, “Miniatures by John Smart: The Starr collection in the Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum,” Antiques (September 1966): 355.
Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 102, p. 39, (repro.), as Unknown Lady.
Graham Reynolds, English Portrait Miniatures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 134, no. 85, (repro.), as An Unknown Lady.
Maggie Keenan, “John Smart, Portrait of a Woman, Possibly Elizabeth Ramus, 1776,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1546.
