Portrait of a Man, Possibly Mr. Gambier
Framed: 1 1/2 × 1 1/4 inches (3.81 × 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. 100, 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, possibly Mr. Gambier.
Frederick Noel Ashcroft (1878–1949) and Mrs. O. S. Ashcroft (née Isabel E. Lowe, b. ca. 1887), London, by May 7, 1946 [1];
Purchased from their sale, Fine Portrait Miniatures, Gold, Jewelled, and Enamel Boxes, and Objects of Vertu, Etc., Sotheby’s, London, May 7, 1946, lot 61, as A Miniature of a Young Man, by Hans E. Backer, London, 1946 [2];
Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 1965;
Their gift to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1965.
Notes
[1] The sale catalogue states, “The Celebrated Collection of Fine English and Continental Miniatures, Snuff Boxes, and Superb Enamel Miniatures (Formerly on loan at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1924–1939). The Property of F. N. Ashcroft, Esq. and Mrs. O. S. Ashcroft.” Mr. Ashcroft was a mineralogist, who donated over 6000 specimens of Swiss minerals to the Natural History Museum, London, between 1921 and 1938. See “Mr. F. N. Ashcroft,” Times (London), April 11, 1949, 7.
“O. S.” is probably Oscar Sheridan Ashcroft (ca. 1881–1944), who married Isabel E. Lowe (b. ca. 1887) in 1927 in London. See letters from Oscar S. Ashcroft in the archives at the National Gallery, London, https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/research/research-centre/archive/record/NGA4/1/52, which are probably related to a painting of Mrs. Williams, ca. 1790, by John Hoppner (1758–1810), which he donated to the National Gallery, London (now at Tate), https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hoppner-mrs-williams-n05582. See also “Deaths: Memorial Service, Mr. O. S. Ashcroft,” Times (London), May 3, 1944, 7.
[2] According to the lot description, “A Miniature of a Young Man, by John Smart, signed and dated, head and shoulder three-quarters sinister, gaze directed at spectator, fair hair en queue, in white cravat, frilled vest and rich red coat, 1 3/8 in.” According to a price list attached to the catalogue, Backer bought lot 61 for £55. Backer was a popular miniature dealer who sometimes bid for the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. This name comes up in Starr correspondence (see letter of October 11, 1955, University of Missouri-Kansas City archives, box 22, folder 9).
Catalogue of Fine Portrait Miniatures, Gold, Jewelled, and Enamel Boxes, and Objects of Vertu, Etc. (London: Sotheby’s, May 7, 1946), 9, (repro.), as A Miniature of a Young Man.
Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 100, p. 38, (repro.), as Unknown Man.
Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “John Smart, Portrait of a Man, Possibly Mr. Gambier, 1774,” 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. 4, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2025), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1536.
