Portrait of a Man
Framed: 2 3/8 × 1 3/4 × 3/16 inches (6.03 × 4.45 × 0.48 cm)
Four Centuries of Miniature Painting, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, January 19–March 19, 1950, no cat., as Portrait of a Gentleman.
The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 8, as Unknown Man.
Portrait miniatures are intimate tokens of love, loss, allegiance, and affection exchanged between intimates. The earliest examples were painted in watercolor on translucent vellum (animal skin). The vellum was then coated on both sides with a smooth preparation suitable for painting upon then stuck to the plain side of a stiff card for added support. Miniature cases were made by jewelers and often as decorative as the portraits.
Nicholas Hilliard ranks among the most prominent miniature painters during the Elizabethan era (1558-1603). Following Queen Elizabeth I's order that no hint of shadow should cloud the royal face, many artists depicted her and other patrons in a two-dimensional style. Originally trained as a goldsmith, Hilliard introduced an innovative technique for painting pearls by applying a raised bead of white lead paint topped by a drop of polished silver. Silver tarnishes with age, and these areas now appear black.
Hilliard's innovative techniques influenced generations of miniaturists in England.
Mrs. H. M. Gray, by 1952;
Her sale, Objects of Art and Vertu, Snuffboxes and Watches, the Property of a Gentleman and From Various Sources and English and Continental Miniatures, the Property of Mrs. H. M. Gray, Christie, Manson, and Woods, Ltd., London, February 6, 1952, lot 28, as A Gentleman, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1952–August 7, 1958 [1];
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1958.
Notes
[1] The lot is described as “Portrait of a Gentleman—by John Hoskins – signed with initials and the date 1645—three-quarter face to the right, wearing armour and with lace collar, his dark hair flowing to his shoulders—oval—2 in. high—in gold frame, the back enamelled with a conventional rose reserved on a pale blue ground in scalloped border— shagreen case.” The miniature is illustrated on the facing page. The annotated catalogue for this sale is located at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Miller Nichols Library. The annotations are most likely by Mr. or Mrs. Starr. Lot 28 is circled twice, in blue pen and pencil, with pencil markings noting “$218” and “3”. Leggatt bought lot 28 for £81 18s. 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.
Objects of Art and Vertu, Snuffboxes and Watches, the Property of a Gentleman and From Various Sources and English and Continental Miniatures, the Property of Mrs. H. M. Gray (London: Christie, Manson, and Woods, February 6, 1952), 6, as A Gentleman.
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), 264.
Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 7, p. 11, (repro.), as Unknown Man.
Blythe Sobol, “John Hoskins the Younger, Portrait of a Man, 1645,” 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. 2, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1228.
