Portrait of Miss Mary Pack

Probably commissioned from the artist by Richard Pack, Esq. (1768–1838) and Mary Freeman (1781–1859), Flore House, Northamptonshire, 1832;

Inherited by their daughter, the sitter, Mary Yates (née Pack, 1808–1898), Southfield House, Whatley, Somerset, by 1859–1883 [1];

Given to her daughter, Ellen Flora Barnardiston Yates (1834–1922), Southfield, Worthing, Sussex, 1883–1922 [2];

Inherited by her nephew, Vernon Bryan Crowther-Beynon (1865–1941), 1922–at least 1926 [3];

Unknown owner, probably Crowther-Beynon’s wife, Mary Crowther-Beynon (née Giffard, 1857–1952), Somerset, by June 29, 1953 [4];

Purchased at the unknown owner’s sale, Objects of Art and Vertu, Miniatures, Glass Paperweights, and Watches, Christie, Manson, and Woods, London, June 29, 1953, lot 29, by Danton Guérault (ca. 1893–1954), London, 1953 [5];

E. A. Davies, Esq. (d. by 1961), London [6];

Inherited by Mrs. M. Davies, by 1961;

Purchased at her sale, Important English Miniatures of the 17th, 18th, and Early 19th Centuries, Christie’s, London, May 2, 1961, lot 143, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1961–1971 [7];

Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1971.

Notes

[1] While the miniature, which dates to 1832 when Mary Pack was twenty-four years old, may have been given to Pack on the occasion of her marriage to Richard Barnardiston Yates on February 10, 1835, it may also have remained with her parents until her mother’s death in 1859.

[2] The miniature’s secondary inscription records that it was gifted to “my dear Flora” in “May 1883,” shortly after the death on April 30, 1883, of the sitter’s husband, Richard Barnardiston Yates. He left a substantial personal estate of £21,882 16s. 8d. to his widow, the former Miss Mary Pack. He died at Westfield in Beckenham, Kent, the home of their son-in-law and youngest daughter Gertrude Ann Barnardiston Crowther. Probate Registry; London, England; Calendar of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration made in the Probate Registries of the High Court of Justice in England, 615.

Out of Mrs. Yates (née Pack)’s three children, Ellen Flora was the only one who remained unmarried in 1883 and still lived with her parents. She married the Reverend Frederick Hopkins on June 2, 1887. England, Select Marriages, 1538-1973, ref: item 5, p. 27; FHL film number 2147082.

[3] The son of Gertrude Anne (née Barnardiston, 1838–1936) and Reverend Samuel Bryan (1829–1910) Crowther-Beynon, rec­tor of Bec­ken­ham, Kent, Vernon Bryan, inherited the family miniatures after the death of his aunt on December 11, 1922. See probate dated February 8, 1923, Principal Probate Registry; London, England; Calendar of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration made in the Probate Registries of the High Court of Justice in England. The inheritors of the estate of Ellen Flora Barnardiston Hopkins are “Vernon Bryan Crowther-Beynon and Frederick Gardnor Hopkins esquires,” her nephew and stepson.

In 1926, John Smart’s portraits of Reverend and Mrs. Yates (see note 2) were recorded by Basil Long as in the hands of “Mr. V. B. Crowther-Beynon, M.A., F.S.A.” Basil Long, “John Smart, Miniature Painter,” The Connoisseur 74, no. 296 (April 1926): 197. These miniatures are now in the collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. See John Smart, Portrait of Elizabeth Maria Yates, 1761 and Portrait of Rev. Richard Sutton Yates, 1762.

Crowther-Beynon was a longtime member of the British Numismatic Society and the composer of the Christmas carol tune “Budapest.” J. Allen, “Obituaries: Mr. V. B. Crowther-Beynon,” British Numismatic Journal 24 (1942–1944): 57, https://www.britnumsoc.org/images/PDFs/24-57.png.

[4] According to the 1953 sales catalogue, “Different Properties” sold lots 19–45. Although Vernon Bryan Crowther-Beynon died in 1941, his wife Mary lived until 1952. It is possible she inherited the miniatures from her husband.

[5] In the sales catalogue, the lot is described as “Portrait of Mary, daughter of Richard Pack of Flore, Northants, by Sir W. C. Ross, R.A., wearing mauve dress and large blue hat with flowers in her hair—oblong, 3 1/2 in. high—leather case.” The following lot in the sale was John Smart’s portraits of Reverend Richard Sutton Yates and his Wife, lot 30. The Smart portraits depict the great-grandparents of Mary Pack’s husband Richard Barnardiston Yates and were most likely inherited alongside the Ross miniature. This suggests that lots 29 and 30 were from the same collection and that this was the posthumous sale of Mary Crowther-Beynon.

The Yates portraits were purchased from the 1953 sale by the dealers Leggatt Brothers and were probably sold directly to Mr. and Mrs. Starr, while the Ross miniature, purchased by Guerault, took a more circuitous route to arrive in the Starr collection.

According to Art Prices Current, 30, August 1952–July 1953 (London: Art Trade Press, 1953), no. 3614, p. A145, “Guerault” was the buyer. This is almost certainly Danton Guérault, Esq., recorded in probate as “Pierre Henri Danton Guerault-Froc,” who collected a variety of portrait miniatures. He donated several to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1927; for example, Thomas Hugh Redmond, A Clergyman, Possibly of the Fenton Family, ca. 1760–85, watercolor on ivory, 1 3/4 x 1 3/16 in. (3.7 x 2.9 cm), Victoria and Albert Museum, London, P.67-1927, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1070217/a-clergyman-possibly-of-the-portrait-miniature-thomas-redmond/. Guérault is described as an art dealer in “Miniatures from Spain? Story of Barcelona Escapes,” The Scotsman (Midlothian, Scotland), August 6, 1938, 16. His other posthumous sale (Christie, Manson, and Woods, London, June 23, 1954, lots 124–125) included a collection of books about famous miniature painters. Guérault died on April 15, 1954, at Hammersmith Hospital, London.

[6] E. A. Davies was a collector of portrait miniatures; see Leo Schidlof, The Miniature in Europe in the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries (Graz: Akademische Druck, 1964), 44.

[7] According to the sales catalogue, the miniature was the property of Mrs. M. Davies, “being part of the Collection formed by The Late E. A. Davies, Esq.” The lot is described as “Miss Mary Pack, by W. C. Ross, signed and dated on the reverse, 1832, full face, against a landscape background, wearing mauve dress with white lace stole and picture hat–rectangular, 3 1/2 in. high–in ormolu frame with oak leaf border.”

According to the Art Prices Current 38 (1961), Leggatt bought the lot for £147. Archival research indicates that the Starrs purchased many miniatures from Leggatt Brothers, either directly or with Leggatt acting as their purchasing agent. See correspondence between Betty Hogg and Martha Jane Starr, May 15 and June 3, 1950, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.