Richard Cosway, Portrait of John “Mad Jack” Fuller, ca. 1790

Chicago:

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “Richard Cosway, Portrait of John “Mad Jack” Fuller, ca. 1790,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1331.

MLA:

Marcereau DeGalan, Aimee. “Richard Cosway, Portrait of John “Mad Jack” Fuller, ca. 1790,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1331.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

Previously known only as Mr. Fuller from an inscription on the verso, this portrait by Richard Cosway presents the colorful figure John “Mad Jack” Fuller—a moniker derived from Fuller’s eccentricity.¹ The arresting gaze of the sitter, who wears a sketchily rendered double-breasted frock coat and a cravat tied in a voluminous bow, draws viewers into this vivid portrayal. Cosway meticulously details the sitter’s fleshy face, capturing the intensity of Fuller’s blue eyes and crimson lips. However, large portions of the ivory remain bare, raising questions about the portrait’s completion. The absence of Cosway’s signature further complicates matters. Cosway’s customary practice involved receiving half payment up front, with the remaining amount settled upon completion; the artist did not add his signature until the work was finished.²

Born on February 20, 1757, in North Stoneham, Hampshire, to the Reverend Henry Fuller and his wife, Frances, John Fuller led a multifaceted life as a wealthy landowner and sometime member of Parliament for Sussex.³ Despite his professional achievements, Fuller is perhaps best remembered for his architectural follies, or garden buildings, including a twenty-five-foot high pyramid built at his estate in Brightling. Fuller was also deeply involved in the arts and sciences, in literary circles, in commissioning portraits (Fig. 1), and in amassing an extensive collection of works by Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851). In fact, Fuller was the first owner of the Nelson-Atkins The Fish Market at Hastings Beach, 1810, which he purchased from Turner on July 26, 1810.⁴

While none of Fuller’s major professional milestones align with the approximate date of this miniature, a significant personal event does. In 1790, Fuller proposed marriage to Susannah Arabella Thrale, daughter of Henry and Hester Thrale, a renowned diarist. She refused, leading to a public display of anger and resentment.⁵ It is plausible that Fuller commissioned Cosway to paint this portrait as a token of affection for Susannah, but after her rejection he ceased sitting for it and never paid, which would explain the lack of Cosway’s signature. Supporting the idea that it was never paid for, the miniature remained in Cosway’s family, passing to his nephew William Halliday Halliday, Esq., and eventually finding its way to the Starr family through a 1953 auction.

The portrait provides valuable insight into Richard Cosway’s studio practice and the complex relationship dynamics between artist and patron. In shedding light on Fuller’s personal struggles and relationships, it allows a glimpse into the emotional complexities of this colorful historical figure. Fuller passed away in London on April 11, 1834, having never married or fathered any children, and was laid to rest under the Pyramid in Brightling churchyard.

Notes

1. I am grateful to Starr Research Assistant Maggie Keenan, who suggested the possible identity of this sitter based on a shared likeness with a portrait by Henry Singleton (see Fig. 1). Further research conducted by the present author substantiated this attribution. For the most comprehensive account of Fuller’s life, including a complete list of his follies, see Geoff Hutchinson, Fuller of Sussex: A Georgian Squire (Brede: Geoff Hutchinson, 1997), 125–53.

2. As communicated by Stephen Lloyd during his October 2023 visit. Notes in NAMA curatorial files.

3. Hutchinson’s Fuller of Sussex offers the following details: Fuller lost his father when he was four and at ten was sent off to school at Eton. In 1780, he was elected a member of Parliament for Southampton, a position he held until 1784 and again from 1801 to 1812. In 1796, he was appointed high sheriff in Sussex, and in 1798, he became a captain in the Volunteer Sussex Yeomanry Cavalry. From around 1818, he became a major supporter of the London Royal Institution, where he endowed numerous faculty positions. Fuller owned two Jamaican plantations along with the slaves who worked the plantation, which he inherited from his uncle, Rose Fuller. The source of the family wealth stemmed from their plantation and a gun foundry business in Sussex. For more on the history of his family and their ties to British slavery, see “John Fuller ‘Mad Jack,’” Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, accessed May 23, 2024, https://wwwdepts-live.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/-1047169191.

4. See provenance notes in NAMA curatorial files and also on the museum’s website: https://art.nelson-atkins.org/objects/25102/fish-market. Hutchinson does not indicate how Fuller met Turner but suggests it may have been through the 3rd Earl of Egremont at his Petworth estate in West Sussex. See Hutchinson, Fuller of Sussex, 81–82.

5. It is unknown why Susannah Thrale spurned Fuller, as by many accounts he was a good match, given his education, wealth, and station. One theory is that her older sister, Hester Maria (Queeney), had eyes for Fuller nearly ten years earlier. Their mother, Hester, disapproved, writing in her diary on January 29, 1781, “Jack Fuller of all people! Wild, gay, rich, loud, I wonder how a girl of delicacy can take a fancy to Jack Fuller of Rose-hill?” See Thraliana: The Diary of Mrs Hester Lynch Thrale (Later Mrs. Piozzi), 1776–1809, ed. Katharine C. Balderston (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951), 2:480. A gossipy letter from Henrietta Henckell Hare to her sister recounts the incident: “Our neighbor of Rose Hill [Fuller] has been lately I hear refused by Miss Susan Thrale and is so very angry with her that he has brought down a woman of the Town to Tunbridge Wells on purpose to distress her by following her everywhere. If this is a fact I think him a great fool.” See “Henrietta Henckell Hare of Herstmonceaux Place,” Sussex County Magazine 6 (1932): 672.

With the artist, Richard Cosway (1742–1821), London, by around 1790–1821;

Inherited by his wife, Maria Cosway (1760–1838), London and Lodi, Italy, 1821–at least 1830 [1];

Probably gifted to her husband’s cousin, Sir William Richard Cosway (1784–1834), Bilsington, Kent, after 1830–1834 [2];

By descent to his son, William Halliday Cosway, later William Halliday Halliday (1828–1898), Devon, England, 1834–1898 [3];

By descent to his daughter, Helen Sybella Hoffmeister (née Halliday, 1861–1957), Devon, England, by 1898 [4];

Given to her son, William Reginald Halliday (1886–1966), London, by 1953 [5];

Purchased from his sale, Objects of Art and Vertu, Miniatures, Watches, and Coins, Christie’s, London, May 18, 1953, lot 73, as Mr. Fuller, by Hans E. Backer, London, 1953 [6];

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.

Notes

[1] According to George C. Williamson, Richard Cosway, R.A. and his Wife and Pupils (London: George Bell and Sons, 1897), 90, Maria Cosway’s inventory after her death included a “portfolio of drawings by R. Cosway.”

[2] In her will, Maria Cosway writes, “I leave the whole collection of drawings of my husband Richard Cosway to his cousin Sir William Cosway those in portfolios two cases all with twelve drawings in [illeg.] and the other with miniatures a case with a picture of Cupid [illeg.] a snuff box with a Lady’s portrait all the oil paintings except the portrait of Paoli of all these there is a list and the drawings are numbered. . . .” “Will of Baroness Maria or Maria Luigia Caterina Cecilia Cosway otherwise Maria Hadfield,” The National Archives, Kew, no. 7194184, ref. PROB 11/1919/339. This codicil to her will was dated 1830. William died in 1834, four years before Maria, so the drawings were either gifted to William between 1830–1834, or they went straight to his son, William Halliday Cosway. See, also, “Will of Sir William Richard Cosway of Bilsington Priory, Kent,” The National Archives, Kew, no. 7194258, ref. PROB 11/1833/401.

[3] After 1872, William Halliday Cosway changed his family’s last name to Halliday, due to an inheritance law which prevented him from acquiring their Glenthorne Estate.

[4] Helen married Charles Reginald Hoffmeister (1855–d. before 1939) in 1886. Hoffmeister adopted the last name Halliday and thus continued the family line. The Witt Library, Courtauld Institute, includes an illustration of this miniature. It is described as, “MR. FULLER. Collection of Miss Cosway.” According to Williamson, Richard Cosway, 1–2:

Richard Cosway appears to have been an only son, and to have had but one near relation, a certain William R. Cosway, who was, however, no closer in relationship than a second cousin. . . . His daughter, Miss Cosway, is still living, but his son, who assumed in 1872, by royal license, the name of Halliday, under directions of the will of the late Simon Halliday, his grandfather, and was therefore known as William Halliday Halliday, died in 1898. . . . Miss Cosway possesses many of Cosway’s miniatures.

This “Miss Cosway” is probably Helen Sybella Cosway, William R. Cosway’s granddaughter not daughter, whose last name was changed to Halliday sometime after 1872. See n. 3.

[5] The sale states, “The following are the Property of Sir William Halliday to whom they have descended from the artist’s brother Sir William Cosway, whose son assumed in 1872 the name of Halliday. The named miniatures are listed in ‘Richard Cosway,’ by G. C. Williamson, page 110.” This William Halliday was initially believed to be William Benjamin Halliday (1868–1931) of Glenthorne, but he died before the 1953 sale and did not have a son named William.

William Reginald Halliday sold the miniature prior to his mother’s January 5, 1957, decease, so he must have been given it by 1953.

[6] According to Art Prices Current (1952–1953), A129, no. 3236: “Richard Cosway, R.A.: Mr. Fuller, 3/4 face looking over left shoulder, face finished, remainder in outline, 3 ins. high. (Backer), £52 10s.” Hans E. Backer was a popular miniature dealer who sometimes bid for the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. This name comes up in Starr correspondence (see letter of October 11, 1955, University of Missouri-Kansas City archives, Box 22, Folder 9).

Henry Singleton (1766–1839), Portrait of John Fuller (1757–1834), 1806, oil on canvas, 50 1/2 x 40 1/4 in. (128 x 102.5 cm), The Royal Institution, London, RIIC 0478.

George C. Williamson, Richard Cosway, R.A. and his Wife and Pupils (London: George Bell and Sons, 1897), 110.

Catalogue of Objects of Art and Vertu, Miniatures, Watches, and Coins (London: Christie’s, May 18, 1953), 10, as Mr. Fuller.

Art Prices Current (August 1952 to July 1953), vol. 30 (London: Art Trade Press, 1955), A129, no. 3236.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 65, p. 25, (repro.), as Mr. Fuller.