Portrait of an Officer of the Foot Guards
Framed: 2 11/16 × 2 3/8 inches (6.83 × 6.03 cm)
Unknown owner, by May 21, 1953 [1];
Purchased from the unknown owner’s sale, Catalogue of Portrait Miniatures, Rare Table Clocks, Watches and Other Objects of Vertu, Sotheby’s, London, May 21, 1953, lot 56, as An Officer, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by May 2, 1953–1958 [2];
Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1958.
NOTES:
[1] In the Sotheby’s May 21, 1953 sale, “Various Properties” sold lots 12–78.
[2] “An Officer, by Richard Crosse, head and shoulders three-quarters dexter, powdered hair en queue, wearing red coat with blue and gold facings, 1 1/2 in., in gold and enamel frame.” The annotated catalogue for this sale is located at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Miller Nichols Library. The annotations are most likely by Mr. or Mrs. Starr. Lot 56 is circled in pen and pencil. A “£10” and “28 [illegible]” is written in pen to the left of the lot. Lot 56 also included a miniature by Sampson Towgood Roch of Samuel Francis Dashwood, now in the Starr Collection, see F58-60/119. Leggatt bought lot 56 for £10. Archival research indicates that the Starrs purchased many miniatures from Leggatt Brothers, either directly or with Leggatt acting as their purchasing agent.
Catalogue of Portrait Miniatures, Rare Table Clocks, Watches and Other Objects of Vertu (London: Sotheby’s, May 21, 1953), 8, as An Officer.
Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 65, p. 23, (repro.), as Unknown Officer.