Samuel Cotes, Portrait of Master Grosvenor, Probably Richard Grosvenor, 1770

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “Samuel Cotes, Portrait of Master Grosvenor, Probably Richard Grosvenor, 1770,” documentation 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/10.37764/8322.5.1345.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “Samuel Cotes, Portrait of Master Grosvenor, Probably Richard Grosvenor, 1770,” documentation. 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1345.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

Read more about this object at the associated catalogue entry.

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, Master 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 Master 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 Miss Grosvenor, see 2018.11.3. 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 1/2 in. 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. 192, as Master Grosvenor.

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

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

Daphne Foskett, A Dictionary of British Miniature Painters (New York: Praeger, 1972), no. 179, pl. 63, (repro.), as Master Grosvenor.