Portrait of a Man
Framed: 1 5/8 × 1 1/4 inches (4.13 × 3.18 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 Gentleman.
The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 104, as Unknown Man.
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 Man.
Unknown woman, by July 13, 1950 [1];
Purchased from her sale, Portrait Miniatures, Objects of Vertu, Fine Watches, Gold Boxes, Etc., Sotheby’s, London, July 13, 1950, lot 6, as A Young Man, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1950–1965 [2];
Their gift through the Starr Foundation to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1965.
Notes
[1] According to the sales catalogue, lots 1–6 were the “Property of a Lady.”
[2] According to the lot description, “A Miniature of a Young Man, by John Smart, signed and dated 1778, head and shoulders three-quarters sinister, gaze directed at spectator, fresh complexion, red-tinted hair en queue, in lace-bordered green waistcoat and brown coat, 2in.” According to Art Prices Current 27 (1949–50), Leggatt bought lot 6 for £68. Archival research has shown that Leggatt Brothers served as purchasing agents for the Starrs. See correspondence between Betty Hogg and Martha Jane Starr, May 15 and June 3, 1950, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files. The Starrs also acquired lot 5, Gore Townsend, see https://www.nelson-atkins.org/starrsupp/Other-Locations/4795/.
Catalogue of Portrait Miniatures, Objects of Vertu, Fine Watches, Gold Boxes, Etc. (London: Sotheby’s, July 13, 1950), 4.
Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 104, p. 39, (repro.), as Unknown Man.
Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “John Smart, Portrait of a Man, 1778,” catalogue entry and Stephanie Spence and John Twilley's technical 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/10.37764/8322.5.1552.
