Portrait of a Man
Framed: 2 × 1 9/16 × 1/8 inches (5.08 × 3.97 × 0.32 cm)
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.
Unknown owner, by 1956;
His sale, Fine Portrait Miniatures, Watches, Gold Boxes, and Objects of Vertu, Sotheby’s, London, February 9, 1956, lot 62, as A Man [1];
Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 1958;
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1958.
Notes
[1] “A Gentleman” sold lots 55–63. The miniature is described in the catalogue as: “A very fine miniature of a man by Isaac Oliver, nearly full face, with dark hair, long and slightly upswept mustache and goatee beard, the features well modeled, wearing a fine white ruff and black tunic against a blue background, in original gold and pale blue enamel frame, oval, 1 1/2 in.” 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 62 has a question mark annotated next to it.
Catalogue of Fine Portrait Miniatures, Watches, Gold Boxes, and Objects of Vertu (London: Sotheby’s, February 9, 1956), lot 62.
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), 265.
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, “Circle of Isaac Oliver, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1600,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1110.
