Portrait of a Man

Artist John Smart (English, 1741 - 1811)

Date1765

MediumWatercolor on ivory; Gold bezel mounted on an ivory box

DimensionsSight: 1 1/4 × 1 inches (3.18 × 2.54 cm)
Framed: 1 3/8 × 1 3/16 inches (3.49 × 3.02 cm)
Overall (box): 1 15/16 × 2 1/2 × 1 3/16 inches (4.92 × 6.35 × 3.02 cm)

Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. John W. Starr and the Starr Foundation, Inc.

Object numberF58-60/144 A,B

InscribedInscribed on recto, lower right: "J.S. / 1765".

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionPortrait miniature of a man with powdered hair wearing an ivory coat before a brown background.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

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 a Man.

Provenance

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.

Published References

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 265, as Portrait of a Man.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 91, p. 37, (repro.), as Unknown Man.

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “John Smart, Portrait of a Man, 1765,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1516.

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