Portrait of a Man, Possibly Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset

Possibly Thomas Brydges Barrett (1698–1757), Lee Priory, Kent, by 1757 [1];

Possibly his posthumous sale, Sale of the Curious Collection of T. Barrett of Lees in Kent, 1758;

Possibly Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (1717–1797), Strawberry Hill, Middlesex, by 1774 [2];

Possibly by descent to his cousin’s daughter, Anne Seymour Damer (1748–1828), Strawberry Hill, Middlesex, and London, 1797–1811 [3];

Possibly inherited by Elizabeth Laura Waldegrave, Countess Waldegrave (1760–1816), Strawberry Hill, Middlesex, 1811 [4];

Possibly by descent to her son, Lieutenant-Colonel John James Waldegrave, 6th Earl of Waldegrave (1785–1835), Strawberry Hill, Middlesex, by 1816 [5];

Possibly by descent to his son, George Edward Waldegrave, 7th Earl of Waldegrave (1816–1846), Strawberry Hill, Middlesex, by 1835–1842;

Possibly purchased from his sale, A Catalogue of the Classic Contents of Strawberry Hill Collected by Horace Walpole, George Robins, London, May 10, 1842, lot 10, as Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, by John Boykett Jarman (1782/83–1864), London, 1842 [6];

Harry Seal (1873–1948), Ullesthorpe House, Leicestershire, by 1948;

Purchased from his posthumous sale, The Choice Collection of Portrait Miniatures, formed by the late Harry Seal, Esq. of Ullesthorpe House, Rugby, Christie, Manson, and Woods, London, February 16, 1949, lot 95, as A Gentleman, by Backer, 1949 [7];

Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 1961 [8];

By descent to their son and daughter-in-law, Mr. John Philip (b. 1933) and Mrs. Barry Mann (b. 1939) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 2011;

By descent to their son, James Philip Starr (b. 1965), Kansas City, MO, by 2017–2018;

His gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2018.

NOTES:

[1] After Barrett’s death, “in consequence of having made no will, by which his personal property went between his widow, his son, and daughter, his (son being then a minor,) some parts of his cabinet pictures and curiosities were brought to the hammer: and of his exquisite collection of miniatures by Oliver, Hilyard, Cooper, Hoskins, and Petitot, &c., several fell into the hands of Horace Walpole, afterwards Earl of Orford, and formed some of the most valuable gems of Strawberry Hill. Mention of them will be found in the description of that villa in Lord Orford’s Works, ii. 474, 475. 477, &c. where Mr. Barrett’s collection is dignified with the epithet of curious.” According to Thomas Brydges Barrett, List of Pictures at the Seat of T. B. Brydges Barrett, Esq., (Lee Priory, Kent: John Warwick, 1817), 3–4.

[2] “Robert Carr earl of Somerset, in his latter time, favourite of king James; by Hoskins: bought at the sale of the curious collection of T. Barrett of Lees in Kent, 1758.” See A Description of the Villa of Horace Walpole, Youngest Son of Sir Robert Walpole Earl of Orford at Strawberry-Hill, near Twickenham (Strawberry Hill: Thomas Kirgate, 1774), 81.

Barrett’s son, Thomas Barrett (1743–1803), was later a friend of Horace Walpole. “The house [Lee Priory] inherited by this Thomas Barrett in 1757, when in his fourteenth year, was an unpretentious building of seventeenth-century date.” He “became a friend of Lord Orford and so a member of the Walpole circle. Almost certainly it was Horace Walpole who introduced the architect, James Wyatt, to Barrett when the latter was minded to improve or rebuild his home.” Robert H. Goodsall, “Lee Priory and the Brydges Circle,” Archaeologia Cantiana 77 (1962): 1. Walpole describes one visit to Barrett’s estate on August 28, 1780: Paget Toynbee, “Horace Walpole’s Journals of Visits to Country Seats,” The Volume of the Walpole Society 16 (1927–1928): 76–77. A May 14, 1792, letter from Walpole to Barrett further suggests a friendship between the two. See Lorne Campbell, The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Schools (London: National Gallery, 1998), 122.

[3] Anne was Walpole’s goddaughter and the daughter of his cousin, Henry Seymour Conway (1721–1795).

[4] Elizabeth was Walpole’s great niece and the daughter of Maria Walpole, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh (1736–1807).

[5] According to Elizabeth’s will, “I also give and bequeath to my said eldest son [John James Earl of Waldegrave] all my household goods and furniture plate silver pictures books and effects whatsoever . . . in any other house or houses which I may occupy at the time of my decease. . . . the same house the property of Horace Earl of Orford deceased and which were bequeathed to me for life.” “Will of Elizabeth Laura Countess of Waldegrave, Widow, Dowager,” The National Archives, Kew, PROB 11/1578/67.

[6] The 1842 sales catalogue reads, “A ditto [miniature portrait] of Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, in his latter time, the favourite of King James I., in water colours, by Hoskins, and high finished. Purchased at the sale of T. Barrett, Esq., of Lees Court, in Kent, in the year 1758.” Lot 10 sold for £14 14s to “Jarman.”

John Boykett Jarman (1782/83–1864) was a London dealer of jewelry and curiosities who at one point worked at 34 St. James’s Street.

[7] The 1949 sales catalogue reads, “A Gentleman, by John Hoskins, signed with monogram. Nearly full face, in gold embroidered white doublet, lace-edged white ruff, with long fair hair, auburn moustache and pointed beard; red curtain background. Oval—1 5/8 in. high—in gold frame enamelled in colours with a green parrot on a mille-fiori ground—17th Century. See Illustration.” Purchased by the miniature dealer, Backer, for £141 15s.

[8] This earliest-known date of ownership is according to Martha Jane and John W. Starr, “Collecting Portrait Miniatures,” Antiques 80, no. 5 (November 1961): 438, (repro.), as Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset.