Unknown, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1835

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “Unknown, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1835,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.3229.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “Unknown, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1835,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.3229.

This sitter’s wooden, doll-like appearance is further stiffened by the straight lines of his evening wear. The unknown gentleman’s dark clothing helps date the work to around 1835, when men’s attire was more somber than in the previous decade. His starched shirt points, peeking through a carefully knotted bowtie, were also a standard feature. His attire is formal, accessorized with a satin waistcoat embroidered with gold and white thread and a corresponding pair of gold buttons. His black silk cravat, wrapped around his neck and tied in a bow at the front, bears a suggestion of lace detailing at its edges.

The dashing young sitter wears his hair in a dramatic side part, the short ends of his chestnut hair culminating in curls framing either side of his face.¹ His long visage is exaggerated by vertical auburn sideburns, a dimpled chin, oval-shaped blue eyes, and highly stylized and symmetrically arched brows. The portrait’s copper case is probably Scottish, in a foliate style popularized around the 1840s.² The hair memento on the case back is particularly intricate, with a scroll of hair in the form of a Prince of Wales feather held by a band of pearls and decorative twists of gold wire (Fig. 1). A floral motif at the top adds to the complexity of the case back.

Notes

1. For a comparable portrait and hairstyle, see A Man in a Patterned Waistcoat with a Gold Watch-Chain, 1840–55, gilded daguerreotype, 2 1/16 x 1 5/8 in. (5.3 x 4.1 cm), Wellcome Collection, London, 567806i, https://wellcomecollection.org/works/phbzxax6/items.

2. According to conversations with Elle Shushan, March 27–31, 2017, and Carol Aiken, May 30–June 2, 2017, NAMA curatorial file. The case aligns with a similarly styled case surrounding Portrait of a Man by an unknown artist.

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. 233, as Unknown Man.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 233, p. 76, (repro.), as Unknown Man.