Portrait of a Man

Formerly attributed to William M. S. Doyle (American, 1769 - 1828)

Culture(Scottish/American)

Dateca. 1810

MediumWatercolor on ivory; Gilt copper alloy case, hair and gold wire memento on back with white glass back, pearls, blue enamel with initials

DimensionsSight: 2 1/8 × 1 3/4 inches (5.4 × 4.45 cm)
Framed: 2 1/2 × 2 1/16 inches (6.35 × 5.24 cm)

Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. John W. Starr and the Starr Foundation, Inc.

Object numberF58-60/154

InscribedNone

On View

Not on view

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionPortrait miniature of a man wearing a black coat before a sky background.Gallery Label

Gallery Label

Open-necked shirts and unpowdered curls abounded in the Regency era (about 1795–1837). A period in Britain associated with the rise of King George IV and the work of novelist Jane Austen, this time left its mark on fashion, too. The poet Lord Byron set the tone for the casual elegance of the period, and many men followed his example. He wore his collars open and his hair short, letting his curls cluster at the front. The period also witnessed the rise of the dandy who prided himself on his immaculate linen shirts with high collars and tailored dark coats. Although tastes evolve, modern-day equivalents of the dandy persist.

Provenance

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.

Published References

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 265.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 232, p. 76, (repro.), as Unknown Man.

Blythe Sobol, “Unknown, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1810,” 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. 3, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1700.

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