Portrait of a Man
Framed: 2 7/16 × 1 7/8 inches (6.19 × 4.76 cm)
- 128
John Smart—Miniaturist: 1741/2–1811, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, December 9, 1965–January 2, 1966, no cat., as Gentleman.
The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 112, as Unknown Man.
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.
Unknown owner, by 1951 [1];
Objects of Art and Vertu, Snuffboxes, Miniatures, Watches, and Fans, Christie’s, London, December 7, 1951, lot 17 [2];
John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 1958–1965;
Their gift to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1965.
Notes
[1] The unknown owner was not identified in the sale, listed in the catalogue only as “different properties” comprising lots 1–18.
[2] The sale catalogue describes it as “Portrait of a gentleman–by John Smart, signed with initials and the date 1783–three-quarter face to the left, wearing red coat and white stock–oval–1 1/2 in. high.” This catalogue is located at University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Miller Nichols Library and was annotated, probably by the Starrs, by circling the lot number. This lot is not documented in Art Prices Current, a record of sale prices and buyers.
Objects of Art and Vertu, Snuffboxes, Miniatures, Watches, and Fans (London: Christie’s, December 7, 1951), 5.
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), 136, 265, (repro.), as Portrait of a Man and formerly as F58-60/134.
Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 112, p. 41, (repro.).
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 149, (repro.), as Portrait of a Man and formerly as F58-60/134.
Blythe Sobol, “John Smart, Portrait of a Man, 1783,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1566.
