Portrait of a Man, Possibly Alexander Sprot
Framed: 2 1/4 × 1 15/16 inches (5.72 × 4.92 cm)
John Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913), New York, by 1906–1913;
His posthumous sale, The Famous Collection of the British and Foreign Schools: The Property of J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq. Christie’s, London, June 24, 1935, lot 425, as Portrait of Sir Joseph Copley, 3rd Bart, by Walker, 1935 [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] Described in the catalogue as “Portrait of Sir Joseph Copley, 3rd Bart. Three-quarter face to the left in brown velvet coat and white stock, with powdered wig; sky background—signed with initials and dated 1788. In water colour. Oval—1 7/8 in. by 1 1/2 in. In pearl frame. Illustrated in The Connoisseur, June 1907. Described and illustrated in Dr. G. C. Williamson’s Catalogue, Vol. II, No. 310.” According to the annotated catalogue, “Walker” bought lot 425 for 35 pounds.
G. C. Williamson, Catalogue of the Collection of Miniatures: The Property of J. Pierpont Morgan (London: Chiswick Press, 1906), no. 310, p. 2:75, (repro.), as Sir Joseph Copley, Baronet, of Sprotborough.
G. C. Williamson, “Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan’s Pictures: The English Miniatures, V,” Connoisseur: An Illustrated Magazine for Collectors 18, no. 70 (June 1907): 71, (repro.), as Sir Joseph Copley.
Catalogue of the Famous Collection of the British and Foreign Schools: The Property of J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq. (London: Christie’s, June 24, 1935), 155, as Portrait of Sir Joseph Copley, 3rd Bart.
Martha Jane and John W. Starr, “Collecting Portrait Miniatures,” Antiques 80, no. 5 (November 1961): 441, (repro.), as Sir Joseph Copley.
Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 178, p. 61 (repro.), as Sir Joseph Copley.
Maggie Keenan, “Nathaniel Plimer, Portrait of a Man, Possibly Alexander Sprot, 1788,” 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. 3, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1474.
