Portrait of Alexander James Dallas
Framed: 2 1/8 × 1 11/16 inches (5.4 × 4.29 cm)
- 128
The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 108, 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 Alexander James Dallas.
Drawing formed a cornerstone of John Smart’s artistic practice. He created detailed sketches of his sitters, like Alexander James Dallas (nos. 4 & 5), before finishing the portraits on ivory. Occasionally, these initial drawings were completed as stand-alone works of art, offering more affordable and larger alternatives to ivory miniatures, like the drawing he gave to his friend, the engraver James Fittler (no. 1).
Probably M. S. Stephens, by July 27, 1953 [1];
Purchased at her sale, Objects of Art and Vertu, Gold Snuff Boxes, Jewellery, Coins, and Miniatures, Christie’s, London, July 27, 1953, lot 107A, as Portrait of Robert Charles Dallas, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1953–1965 [2];
Their gift to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1965.
Notes
[1] According to the sales catalogue, lots 76–107 were “The Property of Miss M. S. Stephens.”
[2] According to the lot description, “Portrait of Robert Charles Dallas, Esq. by John Smart, signed with initials and date 1782, three-quarter face looking over left shoulder, in grey coat with yellow collar and white cravat, powdered wig—oval, 2 1/8 in. high—gold brooch frame. Robert Charles Dallas (1754–1824), writer, acted as intermediary for Lord Byron in the publication of Childe Harold and The Corsair. His sister Henrietta married Byron’s uncle, Captain George Anson Byron.” While the title is inaccurate, the rest of the description aligns with the present portrait.
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 Art and Vertu, Gold Snuff Boxes, Jewellery, Coins, and Miniatures (London: Christie’s, July 27, 1953), lot 107A, as Portrait of Robert Charles Dallas.
Daphne Foskett, John Smart: The Man and His Miniatures (London: Cory, Adams, and Mackay, 1964), 65, as Mr. Dallas.
Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 108, p. 40, (repro.), as Unknown Man.
Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “John Smart, Portrait of Alexander James Dallas, 1782,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1564.
