Portrait of a Woman
Framed: 2 1/16 × 1 7/16 inches (5.24 × 3.65 cm)
With an unknown owner, by 1953 [1];
Purchased from the unknown owner’s sale, Objects of Vertu, Portrait Miniatures, Watches, Gold Boxes, Etc., Sotheby’s, London, November 30, 1953, 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, 1953–1958 [2];
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1958;
Notes
[1] In the Sotheby’s November 30, 1953, sale, “Various Properties” sold lots 83–94.
[2] Described in the catalogue as “A well-painted Miniature of a Lady, by Luke Sullivan, signed and dated 1764, head and shoulders three-quarters dexter, head and gaze directed at spectator, in low-cut blue dress, 1 5/8 in.” The annotated catalogue for this sale is located at University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Miller Nichols Library. The annotations are most likely by Mr. or Mrs. Starr. Lot number 84 is circled and there is “£25” written in pen to the left. According to an attached price list, Leggatt bought lot 84 for £25. Archival research has shown that Leggatt Brothers served as purchasing agents for the Starrs. See correspondence between Betty Hogg and Martha Jane Starr, May 15 and June 3, 1950, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.
Catalogue of Objects of Vertu, Portrait Miniatures, Watches, Gold Boxes, Etc. (London: Sotheby’s, November 30, 1953), 10, as A Lady.
Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 47, p. 20, (repro.), as Unknown Lady.
Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “Luke Sullivan, Portrait of a Woman, 1764,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1656.
