Portrait of Jeremiah Meyer, R.A.
Framed: 41 11/16 × 33 5/8 inches (105.89 × 85.41 cm)
- 124
This
unfinished portrait presents Jeremiah Meyer, a celebrated portrait miniaturist,
holding a portfolio. While many details remain unrealized, this painting
reveals how Nathaniel Dance laid out his compositions. Using loose, gestural
brushstrokes, he delineated the figure and background on a buff-colored ground.
On the sitter’s left shoulder is a patch of burnt-orange paint, indicating
Dance’s color choice for the overcoat. It has dripped down toward the bottom of
the canvas.
Erskine Hewitt (1871-1938), London and New York, by October 18, 1938;
His posthumous sale, The Erskine Hewitt Collection, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, October 20, 1938, lot 803;
With Belmont Galleries, Inc., New York, by January 1949;
Purchased from Belmont by Kenneth Spencer (1902-1960), Kansas City, MO, January 1949-February 20, 1960;
To his widow, Helen Foresman Spencer (1902-1982), Kansas City, MO, February 20, 1960-February 15, 1982;
Her bequest to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1982.
The Erskine Hewitt Collection: Fine Early American Miniatures and Paintings (New York: Parke Bernet Galleries, 1938), 194, as Jeremiah Meyer, R.A.
David Antony Goodreau, “Nathaniel Dance, R. A. (1735-1811)” (Ph.D diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1973), 312, as Jeremiah Meyer (Unfinished).
