Style of Jeremiah Meyer, Portrait of a Woman, 19th century

Chicago:

Blythe Sobol, “Style of Jeremiah Meyer, Portrait of a Woman, 19th century,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.2236.

MLA:

Sobol, Blythe. “Style of Jeremiah Meyer, Portrait of a Woman, 19th century,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.2236.

This portrait was formerly attributed to the German miniaturist Jeremiah Meyer, but the style and technique do not approach the quality of Meyer’s work.¹ It has previously been suggested that it could be a copy of an unknown miniature by Meyer or perhaps an unfinished work by Meyer. Certain passages in the hair exhibit Meyer’s characteristic hatching and figure-eight curls, but the absence of Meyer’s manner in the rest of the portrait makes it unlikely that he painted it. It is almost certainly a nineteenth-century copy of an earlier miniature.

Likewise, the sitter was previously identified as Lady Caroline Price, but this identity is unsubstantiated. The present sitter does not resemble other acknowledged portraits of Price by Andrew Plimer (1763–1837), George Romney (1734–1802), or Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) (Fig. 1).² While these depictions vary due to differences in handling, the shape of the sitter’s eyes and eyebrows is consistent throughout the three confirmed portraits; the Nelson-Atkins miniature differs significantly.

The unknown sitter’s powdered hair, worn high above her forehead with ringlets at the back of her head, suggests that this miniature was copied after an earlier portrait painted around 1775. Her features—including pink rosebud lips, limpid blue-gray eyes, and an aquiline nose—are largely generic, following beauty standards of the time. Such depictions of attractive, fashionable young women have dominated the miniatures market since the late 1700s, driving the popularity of copies. John W. and Martha Jane Starr, who donated this miniature to the Nelson-Atkins, were themselves partial to what they described as “small pictures of pretty court ladies,” like this one.³

Notes

1. This attribution was first questioned by Elle Shushan and Carol Aiken during their collection survey in 2017. See Nelson-Atkins curatorial files, 2017. We are grateful to Bernd Pappe, who examined this miniature during a July 23–25, 2023 visit and shared his observations on the miniature’s attribution and date. Notes in curatorial object files, 2023.

2. Andrew Plimer, Lady Caroline Price, 2 1/2 in. (6.4 cm) high, sold at Bonhams, Fine Portrait Miniatures, May 24, 2006, lot 101, https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/13752/lot/101; George Romney, Portrait of Lady Caroline Price, 1774, oil on canvas, 29 1/2 x 24 5/8 in. (74.9 x 62.5 cm), with Robert Funk Fine Art in 2022, http://robertfunkfineart.com/artists/romney.php; Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lady Caroline Price, 1787, oil on canvas, 30 x 25 in. (76.2 x 63.5 cm), Wernher Collection, Ranger’s House, London, https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/lady-caroline-price-sir-joshua-reynolds/dwF4wAr9br4DgA?hl=en.

3. Martha Jane and John W. Starr, “Collecting Portrait Miniatures,” Antiques (November 1961), 438–40.

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. 53, erroneously as Lady Caroline Price.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 53, p. 22, (repro.), erroneously as Lady Caroline Price.