George Chinnery, Portrait of a Girl, 1793

Chicago:

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “George Chinnery, Portrait of a Girl, 1793,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1310.

MLA:

Marcereau DeGalan, Aimee. “George Chinnery, Portrait of a Girl, 1793,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1310.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

George Chinnery painted this portrait on January 16, 1793, just one year after enrolling at the school of the Royal Academy of Arts in London.¹ Portrait miniatures from the early part of Chinnery’s career are relatively rare, but this portrait of a girl demonstrates the artist’s promise. Indeed, the critic Anthony Pasquin noted in 1794 that “among the budding canditates [sic] for fame, this rising young Artist [Chinnery] is the most prominent. His progress has been rapid almost beyond example: he has rather adopted a new style of painting, somewhat after the manner of [Richard] Cosway.”² Chinnery’s spirited brushwork, backgrounds of stormy skies, and sense of movement—seen here in the way the sitter appears to tilt her head—became hallmarks of the artist’s mature style.

Chinnery’s young sitter is shown in a white muslin gown with brown hair that frames her face and cascades over her shoulders in a profusion of loose curls. She may be related to a woman who sat for Chinnery roughly two weeks before our sitter, whose portrait miniature is presently in the Victoria and Albert Collection.³ Regardless, both sitters likely visited the artist at his studio at No. 1 Sackville Street, Piccadilly, resulting in these enigmatic likenesses that contribute to the artist’s broad appeal.

Notes

1. Chinnery used the Gurney system of shorthand, of which his father had been a noted exponent. After Chinnery’s death the Gurney system fell into disuse, and by the twentieth century the dashes, dots, and squiggles on Chinnery’s drawings were entirely baffling. The Bengal historian Julian James Cotton (1869–1927) was asked to pronounce whether the writing was Tamil or shorthand; Cotton was at least able to certify that it was not Tamil. In recent times a thorough study of Chinnery’s shorthand has been undertaken by Geoffrey Bonsall of Hong Kong University Press, who passed away in 2010 before completing his work. See Patrick Conner, “George Chinnery Comes Home,” review of The Flamboyant Mr Chinnery (1774–1852)—an English Artist in India and China, Asia House, London, The Newsletter, no. 48 (Autumn/Winter 2011), https://www.iias.asia/sites/default/files/nwl_article/2019-05/IIAS_NL58_48.pdf.

2. Anthony Pasquin, A Liberal Critique on the Present Exhibition of the Royal Academy: Being an attempt to correct the National Taste; to ascertain the state of the Polite Arts at this Period; and to Rescue Merit from Oppression (London: H. D. Symonds and J. McQueen, 1794), 36.

3. The Nelson-Atkins miniature was located in a May 2, 1955, sales catalogue at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Miller Nichols Library and was likely annotated by Mr. or Mrs. Starr. Below the lot description stated “Painted a fortnight after a miniature of a lady in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and similarly signed Georgius Chinnery/Pict. Lond./Pinxit/Jan. 16th 1793.” This presumably references Chinnery’s Portrait Miniature of an Unknown Woman, P.5-1914, at the Victoria and Albert Museum. However, their website only describes the portrait as “Signed and dated 1793,” https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O82340/portrait-miniature-of-an-unknown-portrait-miniature-chinnery-george/.

Unknown owner, by May 2, 1955 [1];

Purchased from the unknown owner’s sale, Catalogue of Fine Portrait Miniatures, Sotheby’s, London, May 2, 1955, lot 27, as A Miniature of a Girl, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1955–1958 [2];

Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1958.

Notes

[1] “Property of a Gentleman” sold lots 21–32 in the Sotheby’s May 2, 1955, sale.

[2] “A Miniature of a Girl by George Chinnery, signed and dated 1793, nearly full face, her auburn hair with fringe and with pronounced curls falling to the shoulders of her white dress, cloud and sky background, oval, 2 3/8in. Painted a fortnight after a miniature of a lady in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and similarly signed Georgius Chinnery/Pict. Lond./Pinxit/Jan. 16th 1793.” The above mentioned miniature of a lady is Portrait Miniature of an Unknown Woman, 1793, watercolor on ivory, P.5-1914, V&A.

The sale is located at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Miller Nichols Library and is likely annotated by Mr. or Mrs. Starr with a circled lot number. “Leggatt” bought lot 27 for £20. 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.

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 186, as Unknown Young Girl.

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

Henry and Sidney Berry-Hill, George Chinnery 1774–1852: Artist of the China Coast (Leigh-On-Sea, England: F. Lewis, 1963), plate 8 (repro.), as Portrait of a Lady.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 186, p. 63, (repro.), as Unknown Young Girl.