Portrait of a Man, Possibly General Edmund Ludlow
Framed: 2 3/8 × 1 15/16 × 1/8 inches (6.03 × 4.92 × 0.32 cm)
International Exhibition of Miniatures, Brussels, 1912, no. 123.
Internationale Miniaturen-Austellung in der Albertina Wien, Albertina, Vienna, May–June, 1924, no. 282.
Four Centuries of Miniature Painting, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, January 19–March 19, 1950, no cat., as General E. Ludlow.
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.
Samuel Cooper became the most celebrated miniaturist of the post-Restoration period in England (1660-1689) so-called as it marks the restoration of Charles II to the throne. Cooper trained with his uncle, John Hoskins and learned his ability to capture individual character. Cooper's resulting portraits reveal a keen sensitivity to detail unlike any other artist from the period.
After Cooper's death, miniaturists began to adopt new techniques to depict their subjects. From thickly applied paint to more delicate brushwork, and even hazy effects, artists began to explore their own signature style.
With Duveen Brothers, London, by 1912 [1];
Hans Freiherr Reitzes von Marienwert (1877–1935), Vienna, by 1924 [2];
Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 1949 [3];
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1958.
Notes:
[1]
It is unknown when the Duveens acquired or sold the miniature, but it is
illustrated on page 39 of an unpublished stock album along with several other
Starr miniatures. It was in their hands by 1912, when they loaned it to an
exhibition in Brussels. Duveen Brothers, Miniatures, undated, Series
I.A., Box 15, The Getty Research Institute, Special Collections, Los Angeles,
California. International Exhibition of Miniatures, Brussels, 1912: British
Section (London: Speaight, 1912), 11.
[2]
While we are unable to establish a date of acquisition by the Starr family, the
miniature was exhibited in 1924 at the Albertina as belonging to Austrian
banker Hans Freiherr Reitzes von Marienwert (1877–1935). Several other
miniatures cited in [1] on the same page of the Duveen stock album and
exhibited by the Duveens in Brussels in 1912 were acquired by von Marienwert as
well, most likely purchased at the same time, comprising a group of
seventeenth-century miniatures with closely linked twentieth-century provenance
narratives. For example, Thomas Flatman’s 1663 Sir Geoffrey Palmer,
recently sold as lot 13 at Christie’s on November 20, 2007, was sold by Duveen
to von Marienwart, before being acquired by the Starrs’ contemporary Greta
Shield Heckett (1899–1976). More conclusively, the provenance for a 1657
portrait of a woman by John Hoskins, sold as lot 13 in the third Pohl-Ströher
sale at Sotheby’s, December 5, 2019, was in von Marienwert’s collection by
1924, and it was also later purchased by Mrs. Heckett. If the Hoskins was
acquired at the same time as the Nelson-Atkins Portrait of Elizabeth
Stanley, Countess of Derby, which seems likely, those dates could apply to
our miniature as well. Nicholas Dixon’s Portrait of Sir George Wakeham,
1679, illustrated on page 38 of the stock album, was sold at part II of the
Pohl-Ströher sale at Sotheby’s, July 4, 2019, lot 17, and was also previously
owned by Duveen, Marienwart and Heckett. [3] The
Starrs almost certainly purchased this miniature on a trip to Europe in the
summer of 1949, as revealed in their correspondence with Josephine Allen, who
asked to include some of the Starrs’ new acquisitions for an upcoming exhibition
of portrait miniatures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Cross miniature
was exhibited in Four Centuries of Miniature Painting in January 1950. Correspondence
with Josephine Allen and Martha Jane Starr, Curatorial file for Four Centuries
of Miniature Ptg. - 1950, European Paintings department, Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York.
International Exhibition of Miniatures: Brussels, 1912: British Section (London: W. Speaight and Sons, 1912), 13, as General Edmund Ludlow.
Leo Schidlof, Internationale Miniaturen-Ausstellung in der Albertina Wien (Vienna: Gesellschaft der Bilder- und Miniaturenfreunde, 1924), 18, as General Edmund Ludrow.
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, as General E. Ludlow.
Leo Schidlof, The Miniature in Europe (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck—U. Verlagsanstalt, 1964), 1:207.
Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 18, p. 13, (repro.), as General E. Ludlow.
