Samuel Cotes, Portrait of Miss Grosvenor, Probably Maria Deborah Grosvenor, 1770

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “Samuel Cotes, Portrait of Miss Grosvenor, Probably Maria Deborah Grosvenor, 1770,” 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. 2, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1344.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “Samuel Cotes, Portrait of Miss Grosvenor, Probably Maria Deborah Grosvenor, 1770,” 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. 2, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024. doi: 10.37764/8322.5.1344.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

The name “Grosvenor” has remained with this portrait, and its counterpart (Fig. 1, 2018.11.5), since their first known record of sale in 1945.¹ However, recent genealogical research may have revealed more specific identities for these sitters based on Cotes’s execution date of 1770. Research began with a rough estimation of the sitters’ age, yielding possible birth years of 1757–1761 for a girl and 1759–1763 for a boy with the last name Grosvenor.² After searching genealogical sources for baptismal records that correspond to those years, there were two boys and one girl who shared the same parents: Thomas Grosvenor (1734–1795), a British politician, and his wife, Deborah Skynner (1737–1771).³ The children are Maria Deborah (1760–1834), Richard (1761–1819), and Stephen (1762–ca. 1763).⁴ Due to Stephen’s untimely death in infancy—and the couple’s other children, Thomas, later General (1764–1851); Emma (1765–1793); and Robert, later Reverend (1767–1842), being too young for the portrait—the Nelson-Atkins miniatures likely depict Maria Deborah and Richard.⁵

The parents may have commissioned the portraits as visual documentation of children who might not survive to adulthood, as they had painfully experienced with their second son, Stephen. Samuel Cotes’s brother, Francis (1726–1770), also drew a pastel of their third son, Thomas (1764–1851), around 1768–1770.⁶ Other artists apparently admired Thomas’s visage, with John Hoppner (English, 1758–1810) depicting him in his 3rd Foot Guards uniform in the Royal Academy’s 1795 exhibition and the miniaturists Anne Mee (English, ca. 1770/75–1851) and Henry Bone (English, 1755–1834) (Fig. 2) copying Hoppner’s painting shortly afterward.⁷ All three versions display a family resemblance to Samuel Cotes’s portrait miniature of his brother, Richard, as a child: they share clear blue eyes, pointed noses, defined philtrums, and thin upper lips. Francis Cotes died in 1770, the same year as the Nelson-Atkins miniatures, so it is probable that his patrons, the Grosvenors, sought work from Francis’s brother after his death. Samuel Cotes also lost his wife and newborn daughter in 1770, adding to the sentiment behind his paintings of these two young children.

Richard Grosvenor was born on October 5, 1761, making him nine years old in the Nelson-Atkins portrait. He is depicted wearing a form of masquerade attire inspired by fashions from the early 1600s and worn by boys in England between 1750 and 1780.⁸ Richard’s chartreuse doublet figures in many of Cotes’s other works, including his portraits of a man and woman also at the Nelson-Atkins. His outfit also includes a purple sash with marks of plum blue, echoing the shadows cast across more than half his face. Lines of tawny yellow appear along his neck, across his chin, and in dashes atop the bow of his tied collar. The lacework along the collar’s edge and in the tassels is similar to details in his sister’s headband. Richard would go on to join the British Parliament and marry Sarah Frances, daughter of Edward Drax of Charborough Park, Dorset, subsequently assuming the surname Erle-Drax.⁹

Maria Deborah was a year older than her brother Richard. Her portrait differs from her brother’s in her forward-facing position, which allows her eyes to catch the light and reflect back a speck of white. She wears fashionable girl’s attire: a pink silk dress edged with white lace, and a white lace cap with a pink ribbon threaded through the middle.¹⁰ Fabric is ruched along her neckline and across her sleeve. The lace trim on her gown and cap displays a range of colors; in addition to speckled dots of white, there are dashes of pink, gray-blue, and orange where the lace casts a shadow on her skin. Francis Cotes was an expert in painting fabric, a skill he clearly passed onto his younger brother. In both portraits, Cotes plays with a combination of warm and cool tones beside and beneath the other, which blend to form a peachy skin tone.

Maria Deborah never married, and she remained extremely close with her family.¹¹ This sibling portrait pair, along with other portraits of Grosvenor relatives, portrays a tight-knit family with a love and admiration for art.¹² In 1826, when Maria Deborah suffered from an unknown illness and feared she would not live to see the next day, she wrote a codicil to her will, repeatedly thanking her two surviving brothers: “I thank you my dear Robert and my dear brother Gen^l Grosvenor for your unrequited kindness and attention towards me.”¹³ No doubt Richard would have been included in her praises as well had he not died seven years earlier. Her words, written at the age of sixty-six, make these portraits of her and her nine-year-old brother all the more endearing.

Notes

1. Ralph William M. Walker (1856–1945) sold the two portraits in his Christie’s sale, “Catalogue of The Collection of Objects of Vertu,” on July 17, 1945, lot 129. Prior to this, the portraits were likely passed down through the family, as was the case with Francis Cotes’s Portrait of Field-Marshal Thomas Grosvenor, M.P., as a Child. See more about Thomas’s portrait in endnote 6.

2. According to research by the present author. This was based on the girl appearing to be between nine and eleven years old and the boy between seven and eleven.

3. “Grosvenor, Thomas I (1734–95), of Swell Court, Som.,” The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790–1820, ed. R. Thorne (Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 1986). The family lived at Swell Court, Somerset. Thomas Grosvenor was a British politician, the second son of Sir Robert Grosvenor, 6th Baronet (1695–1755) and Jane Warre (1705–1791).

4. London Church of England Parish Registers, ref. P89/MRY1/004 and P89/MRY1/004, London Metropolitan Archives.

5. John Fielding, Fielding’s New Peerage of England, Scotland and Ireland (London: John Murray, 1790), 79; London Church of England Parish Registers, ref. P89/MRY1/004, London Metropolitan Archives. Stephen was born on December 8, 1762, and baptized January 5, 1763. He likely died sometime after in 1763.

6. According to the catalogue for the 1971 exhibition Introducing Francis Cotes, R.A. (1726–1770), “A pastel of a child’s head, by Cotes, was exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1767, and this might conceivably have been the portrait of Thomas Grosvenor. It was quite usual for Cotes and other painters to exhibit portraits at the Society of Artists under the anonymity of a title such as ‘A Gentleman’, ‘A Lady’, ‘A Child’, &c. Coll.: by descent in the Grosvenor family. Lent by the Duke of Westminster.” This is the same portrait by Francis Cotes, now dated ca. 1768–1770, that is located at Eaton Hall. Francis Cotes also completed a portrait, now lost, of Lady Harriet Grosvenor (ca. 1745–1828), sister-in-law to Thomas and Deborah. Introducing Francis Cotes, R.A. (1726–1770), ed. Alastair Smart (Nottingham: Nottingham University Art Gallery, 1971), 29, no. 25.

7. The Exhibition of the Royal Academy 27 (1795): 7, no. 167, as Portrait of an Officer. Hoppner’s oil painting, like the pastel by Francis Cotes, is located at Eaton Hall. See Portrait Miniature of Lt. Col. Thomas Grosvenor (1764–1851), watercolor on ivory, 2 13/16 in. (7.1 cm) high, previously in the collection of Philip Mould, London; and Henry Bone, after John Hoppner, Thomas Grosvenor, 1796, pencil drawing squared in ink for transfer, 7 3/4 x 5 7/8 in. (19.7 x 14.9 cm), National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG D17254.

8. Aileen Ribeiro, “Children’s Fancy Dress Based on Early 17th-Century Fashion,” in “The Dress Worn at Masquerades in England, 1730 to 1790, and its Relation to Fancy Dress in Portraiture” (PhD diss., University of London, 1975), 144–50, 209. The masquerade attire is also called the “Van Dyck costume” in honor of Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Flemish, 1599–1641) and is often represented in portraits by English artist Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788). It is similar to that in Richard Crosse’s Portrait of a Man.

9. “Richard Grosvenor marriage license,” March 11, 1788, England, Dorset, Parish Registers, FHL film number: 002427457; “Richard Edward Grosvenor baptismal certificate,” March 10, 1797, England, Dorset, Parish Registers, FHL film number: 002427457; “Louisa Grosvenor baptismal certificate,” January 28, 1795, England, Births and Christenings, FHL film number: 599895; “Jane Frances Grosvenor baptismal certificate,” January 27, 1789, England, Dorset, Parish Registers, FHL film number: 002430568; “Sheriffs appointed by His Majesty in Council, for the Year 1800,” The London Gazette, no. 15228, (February 4, 1800): 114. Richard and Sarah Frances married in 1788. He was the only descendant of Thomas and Deborah Grosvenor to have children. Richard and his wife had a son, Richard (1797–1828), and two daughters, Louisa (1795–1795) and Jane Frances (1789–1854). Richard also held the title of High Sheriff of Dorset from 1800 to 1801. His son succeeded him in Parliament.

10. The dress is very similar to the one depicted in Francis Cotes’s Miss Frances Lee, 1769, oil on canvas, 36 x 28 1/4 in. (91.4 x 71.8 cm), Milwaukee Art Museum, M1964.5.

11. She was religious, stating at the outset, “I desire that I may not be buried in any Church or Chapel thinking that a dead body should not pollute the house of God,” and she bequeathed five hundred pounds to the Middlesex Hospital. Records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, PROB 11, no. 1834, National Archives, Kew.

12. There were likely also portraits commissioned of the other three Grosvenor children: Thomas, Emma, and Robert. According to a conversation on March 19–23, 2018, with conservator Carol Aiken, “Given [the portraits’] age, the frames were probably made for these images (both Cotes).” The original Grosvenor House was once considered to have one of the best private art collections in the world. While some of the works were sold between the two world wars, most remain at Eaton Hall, as is the case with the two works by Francis Cotes mentioned above.

13. “Will of Maria Deborah Grosvenor,” National Archives, Kew, PROB 11, piece 1834; H. M. Chichester and Roger T. Stearn, “Grosvenor, Thomas (1764–1851),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, September 23, 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/11675; Tony Heathcote, The British Field Marshals, 1736–1997: A Biographical Dictionary (Barnsley: Lee Cooper, 1999), 154. Maria Deborah wrote her codicil at Grosvenor House on September 26, 1826. Despite her fear of encroaching death, she did not die until eight years later, in 1834. Robert Grosvenor married Elizabeth Heathcote and later Anne Wilbraham, but there were no children from either marriage. He held many ranks in the military and was promoted to field marshal, the highest rank in the British Army, in 1846.

Ralph William M. Walker (1856–1945), London, by 1945 [1];

Purchased from his sale, The Collection of Objects of Vertu, Christie, Manson, and Woods, London, July 17, 1945, lot 129, as by Samuel Collins, Miss Grosvenor, by Bartle Charles Philip (1886–1949) and Elsie Gertrude (1888–1967) Kehoe, Saltdean, Sussex, 1945–1950 [2];

Purchased from Elsie Kehoe’s sale, Objects of Vertu, Fine Watches, Etc., Including The Property of Mrs. W. D. Dickson; also Fine Portrait Miniatures Comprising The Property of Mrs. Kehoe, Sotheby’s, London, June 15, 1950, lot 164, as Miss Grosvenor, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1950–2011 [3];

By descent to their son, Mr. John Philip (b. 1933) and daughter-in-law, Mrs. Barry Mann (b. 1939) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 2011–2017;

Given to their son, James Philip Starr (b. 1965), Kansas City, MO, 2017–2018;

His gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2018.

Notes

[1] Walker was a director of Nixon’s Navigation Company in 1909 and 1911, a coal mining company in South Wales. The company employed 1,558 men and output 1,250,000 tons of coal in 1897.

[2] Described in the catalogue as “Miss Grosvenor, wearing pink dress and cap edged with lace, by S. Collins, signed and dated 1770; and Master Grosvenor, wearing green coat, mauve cloak and white collar, by S. Collins, signed and dated 1770.” This lot included a miniature of Master Grosvenor, see 2018.11.5. According to Art Prices Current, “Kehoe” bought lot 129 for £73 10s.

[3] Described in the catalogue as “A Pair of Fine Miniatures of Master and Miss Grosvenor, by Samuel Cotes, signed and dated 1770, the boy with fair curly hair, a vandyke collar over a green tunic and mauve cloak, the girl with mauve and white cap and low-cut mauve dress, with white frilled edging, 1 1/2in. Formerly in the Collection of R.W.M. Walker, Esq.” Leggatt bought lot 164 for £52. 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.

British Portrait Miniatures: An Exhibition Arranged for the Period of the Edinburgh International Festival, The Arts Council of Great Britain, Edinburgh, August 20–September 18, 1965, no. 191, as Miss Grosvenor.

Catalogue of The Collection of Objects of Vertu (London: Christie, Manson, and Woods, July 17, 1945), 13, as by Samuel Collins, Miss Grosvenor.

Catalogue of Objects of Vertu, Fine Watches, Etc., Including The Property of Mrs. W. D. Dickson; also Fine Portrait Miniatures Comprising The Property of Mrs. Kehoe (London: Sotheby’s, June 15, 1950), 21, as Miss Grosvenor.

Martha Jane and John W. Starr, “Collecting Portrait Miniatures,” Antiques 80, no. 5 (November 1961): 438–39, (repro.), as Miss Grosvenor.

Daphne Foskett, A Dictionary of British Miniature Painters (New York: Praeger, 1972), no. 178, pl. 63, (repro.), as Miss Grosvenor.