Portrait of a Woman

Lionel Barned Mozley (1847–1933), Marylebone, Middlesex, England, by 1929–1933 [1];

Purchased from his posthumous sale, The Well-Known Collection of Portrait Miniatures, Pique, Enamels, and Objects of Vertu: The Property of Lionel Mozley, Esq. (deceased), Sotheby’s, London, June 15, 1933, lot 104, as A Lady, by Ethel Louisa Caroline Pauline Floersheim (1876–1959), Hove, Sussex, England, 1933–1950 [2];

Purchased from her sale, Objects of Art and Vertu, Miniatures, Watches: the Property of Miss Ethel Floersheim; Admiral Sir Rudolph Burmester, K. B. E., C. B., C. M. G.; A Lady of Title; and Others; Also Faberge Cigarette Cases: the Property of Mrs. Michael Pugh, Christie, Manson, and Woods, London, June 26, 1950, lot 84, as A Lady, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1950–1958 [3];

Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1958.

Notes

[1] Lionel B. Mozley was born in 1847 to banker and mayor of Liverpool, Charles Mozley (1797–1881). Lionel never married and was employed as solicitor; see advertisement in Times (London) (May 7, 1881): 17. According to England and Wales National Probate Calendar, index of wills, 1933, p. 168, “Lionel Barned of 48 Cumberland-mansions Seymour-place Marylebone Middlesex died 22 April 1933 Probate London 19 May to Montague Bender and Montie Phillip Arnold solicitors. Effects £10852 7s. 5d.” Lionel was eighty-six years old at the time of his death; see England and Wales Civil Registration Death Index, deaths registered in April, May, and June 1933, p. 92. Mozley was listed as age fourteen in an 1861 census. Mozley presented and bought portraits at the Christie’s sale, April 6–29, 1916 (to benefit the British Red Cross Society). Per a label on the object’s case verso, Mozley lent the miniature for the Engleheart exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in 1929.

[2] According to the sales catalogue price list, Floersheim bought lot 104 for £25. In the sales catalogue, the miniature is illustrated on the facing page, along with a note: “Exhibited at the Engleheart Exhibition, no. 344.” No. 344 matches the label on the case verso. Although Mozley did lend a miniature no. 344 to the 1929 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert, London, it was a portrait of Mr. Phelp, dated 1816. The only undated portrait of a woman lent by Mozley was no. 37, A Lady.

Ethel L. C. Floersheim was born in 1876 to Louis Ferdinand Floersheim (1835–1917) and Julia Frances Ellis Eva Baddeley (1848–1931). In 1901, Ethel (along with her two siblings) inherited the family’s Pennyhill Park estate and £5,000 each. She never married and died in 1959 at the age of 83.

[3] The annotated catalogue for this sale is located at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Miller Nichols Library. The annotations were most likely made by Mr. or Mrs. Starr, with a circled lot number, an “X,” “60,” and a cursive “Leggatt.” The miniature is illustrated on the facing page, along with a circled lot number below the illustration. According to Art Prices Current (London: Art Trade Press, 1952), 27:A145, Leggatt bought the miniature for £63. Archival research indicates that the Starrs purchased many miniatures from Leggatt Brothers, either directly or with Leggatt acting as their purchasing agent.