Portrait of John Wells, Rear-Admiral of the White
Framed: 3 3/16 × 2 9/16 inches (8.1 × 6.51 cm)
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John Smart—Miniaturist: 1741/2–1811, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, December 9, 1965–January 2, 1966, no cat., as Admiral Wells.
The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 141, as Admiral Wells.
John Smart: Virtuoso in Miniature, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, December 21, 2024–January 4, 2026, no cat., as Portrait of John Wells, Rear-Admiral of the White.
Smart created intricately detailed and carefully observed portraits of wealthy merchants. His miniatures’ expressive features and richly textured clothing convey sitters’ personalities and circumstances. Smart often worked from sketches of his subjects, allowing him to produce later versions of his miniatures.
For much of his career, Smart was based in London, but in 1785, he moved to India. He painted there for ten years for both British employees of the East India Company and Indian royals. Works from this period are often inscribed with an “I”.
After his return to London, Smart used his meticulous style to paint larger miniatures, which were in fashion.
Probably commissioned by John Wells (1763–1841), Bolnore, Cuckfield, Sussex, 1808–1841;
Probably inherited by his wife, Jane Wells (née Dealtry, 1769–1844), Bolnore, Cuckfield, Sussex, 1841–1844 [1];
Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 1965;
Their gift to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1965.
Notes
[1] According to the provenance compiled for George Romney, Portrait of John Wells When a Boy, ca. 1770, listed for sale at Important British Paintings, Sotheby’s, London, November 22, 2007, lot 51, https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2007/important-british-paintings-l07123/lot.51.html, Jane Wells’s second cousin may have inherited her property. This cousin has not yet been identified.
Daphne Foskett, John Smart: The Man and His Miniatures (London: Cory, Adams, and Mackay, 1964), 75, as Admiral John Wells.
Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 141, p. 49, (repro.), as Admiral Wells.
Maggie Keenan, “John Smart, Portrait of John Wells, Rear-Admiral of the White, 1808,” 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. 4, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2025), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1634.
