Portrait of a Woman, possibly Anne Boleyn
Framed: 4 1/4 × 2 7/8 inches (10.8 × 7.3 cm)
Given by Mrs. H.F. McElroy, Kansas City, MO, to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1935 [1].
NOTES:
[1] Henry Francis McElroy (1865–1939) was the City Manager of
Kansas City, Missouri, from 1926 to 1939. He was married to Marie Orbison (1879–1920)
from 1906 until her death in 1920, and it does not appear that he ever
remarried. The McElroys’ son was also named Henry Frances McElroy (1909–1990).
He married Elizabeth Edwards Beasley (b. ca. 1913) around 1933. While it is
possible that Elizabeth was the donor of the portrait at age 22, it is also
possible that upon Marie McElroy’s death in 1920, the family gave the portrait
to the Mary Atkins’ Trust, which was established in 1911 (before the museum’s opening
in 1933). It was officially accessioned into the museum’s collection on January
1, 1935.
“Unknown
(French/English), after Hans Holbein, Portrait of a Woman, Possibly
Anne Boleyn, late 19th/early 20th century,” 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. 1, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of
Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.4225.
