Unknown, Portrait of Joseph Bruen, ca. 1790

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “Unknown, Portrait of Joseph Bruen, ca. 1790,” 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. 1, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.3115.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “Unknown, Portrait of Joseph Bruen, ca. 1790,” catalogue entry. 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, edited by Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, vol. 1, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024. doi: 10.37764/8322.5.3115.

The key information about this portrait comes from the inscription on its case, which reads: “Joseph Bruen / John Ramage / 1778.” However, modern scholars challenge the attribution to John Ramage (Irish, worked in America, ca. 1748–1802).¹ They point to the absence of Ramage’s more mature style, which casts doubt on the authenticity of the inscription, suggesting it may have been added much later, possibly in the twentieth century.² The identified sitter, Joseph Bruen, potentially corresponds to Joseph Bruen of New Jersey (1746–1822), placing him between twenty-nine and thirty-two years old when this portrait was created.³

Interestingly, Ramage’s son mentioned a Mr. Bruen in a letter to his stepmother in 1795, referring to a “Mr. Bruen who [was] to Call on Mrs. Bradford But he did not Call.”⁴ Nothing else is known about this Mr. Bruen, only that he was a friend of Ramage’s son. However, if the artist attribution and inscription are erroneous, other identifying details become unreliable. For example, the engraved date of 1778 clashes with the sitter’s high collar, which suggests a more plausible timeframe of around 1790.⁵

It is possible that the present work is a copy by William Verstille (American, 1757–1803) after Ramage.⁶ Both artists worked concurrently in New York, and their miniatures are comparable in size, coloring, posture, casework, and background, often causing confusion.⁷ Despite these parallels, distinctive features in Verstille’s work, such as angular, narrow eyes, differ from those in the Nelson-Atkins portrait. Notably, the present subject lacks Verstille’s blue undertones and his characteristic defined pupils with white highlights. The true identity of the artist of this miniature remains unknown, but it is evident that they were part of Ramage’s and Verstille’s artistic circle.

Notes

1. Both Elle Shushan and Carol Aiken have disagreed with the attribution of Ramage; notes in NAMA curatorial files.

2. Per Shushan, “Engraving on the back is twentieth century,” and Aiken, “Engraving on case is not period”; notes in NAMA curatorial files. Thank you to Julie Aronson, curator of American paintings, sculpture, and drawings at the Cincinnati Art Museum, for her opinion on the matter. Conversations with the author, November 14, 2023.

3. “Joseph Bruen,” Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889–1970, National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, Louisville, KY, microfilm; “Joseph Bruen,” Find a Grave, accessed June 9, 2011, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/71089326/joseph-bruen?_gl=1*1ouli4w*_gcl_au*ODkwNDU5MDEzLjE3MDEyMDQ3MTY. An account of Joseph Bruen taking up arms to defend his home during the Revolutionary War is told by his son, Ichabod (1774–1856), in William Parkhurst Tuttle, “The Joseph Bruen House,” in Bottle Hill and Madison: Glimpses and Reminiscences from its Earliest Settlement to the Civil War (Madison: Madison Eagle Press, 1917), 72–73.

4. The full quote reads, “I and Mr. Bradford have left letters at the Ferry house & upon enquiry found they did not go to You. I therefore once more try to send you a few lines I would have wrote to you on Saturday last by Mr. Bruen who [was] to Call on Mrs. Bradford But he did not Call.” The letter is dated New York, November 8, 1795, cited in John Hill Morgan, A Sketch of The Life of John Ramage: Miniature Painter (New York: New-York Historical Society, 1930), 45.

5. This is due to the height of his coat collar. For a comparable example, see William Verstille, Portrait of a Gentleman, ca. 1795, watercolor on ivory, 1 5/8 x 1 1/4 in. (4.1 x 3.1 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2006.235.265, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/15221; and Charles Willson Peale, Charles Pettit, 1792, oil on canvas, 35 7/8 x 27 in. (91.1 x 68.6 cm), Worcester Art Museum, 1919.121, https://worcester.emuseum.com/objects/23563/charles-pettit.

6. Thanks to Elle Shushan for first making this suggestion; notes in NAMA curatorial files. For a similar likeness, particularly in the sitter’s nose, see William Verstille, Lieutenant Colonel Elias Parker, ca. 1795, watercolor on ivory, 1 1/2 x 1 1/4 in. (3.6 x 3 cm), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2006.235.262, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/15222.

7. It has been suggested that Verstille apprenticed under Ramage, or that he at least copied Ramage’s miniatures; see Dale T. Johnson, American Portrait Miniatures in the Manney Collection (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1990), 224. According to Johnson, “they are often mistaken for each other” (223). Ramage rarely signed his work, and Verstille sometimes signed his work “Verstille,” “V.,” or “W V. pinxt.”

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.

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 224, as Joseph Bruen.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 224, p. 73, (repro.), as by John Ramage, Joseph Bruen.