Richard Cosway, Portrait of William Courtenay, 3rd Viscount Courtenay, later 9th Earl of Devon, 1795

Chicago:

Blythe Sobol, “Richard Cosway, Portrait of William Courtenay, 3rd Viscount Courtenay, later 9th Earl of Devon, 1795,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1334.

MLA:

Sobol, Blythe. “Richard Cosway, Portrait of William Courtenay, 3rd Viscount Courtenay, later 9th Earl of Devon, 1795,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1334.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

Due to a case of mistaken identity, this miniature was sold at auction in 1934 as a portrait of John Bellenden Gawler. However, its resemblance to a nearly identical miniature, also by Richard Cosway, reveals the sitter to be William Courtenay, 3rd Viscount Courtenay and later 9th Earl of Devon (1768–1835), one of Cosway’s most significant patrons.¹ This miniature joins a remarkable group of portraits depicting Courtenay wearing the nostalgic and flamboyant Van Dyck costume. The costume was named for its resemblance to the seventeenth-century attire frequently worn in portraits by Sir Anthony van Dyck (Flemish, 1599–1641) and his contemporaries, which had returned to popularity in portraiture and fancy dress balls beginning in the 1760s.² Cosway and his sitters were particular adherents of this trend. Courtenay sat for Cosway in “Van Dyck dress” at least three times, beginning with the large-scale oil portrait he commissioned in 1791, which still hangs at his ancestral home, Powderham Castle in Exeter.

Painted when Courtenay was about twenty-three years old, Cosway’s full-length oil of Courtenay in his black satin suit and lace collar is perhaps a grandiose statement of Courtenay’s coming of age as a viscount and a patron of the arts. The Nelson-Atkins miniature is closely cropped at three-quarters length, with Courtenay’s face angled to the left. This allows the viewer to better admire his elegant profile and elaborate costume, with slashed black satin revealing a blue lining and a white shirt underneath, its lacy collar spilling out from the neckline of the buttoned doublet. Blue appears again in the cape and the dramatic sash that spreads over Courtenay’s left shoulder, and in the sky background that was Cosway’s trademark. Cosway renders the tumble of boyish curls, fashionably powdered, in his typically bravura brushwork.

While Cosway’s “fancy dress” portraits were painted in Courtenay’s adulthood, his garments resemble the “Van Dyck suits” that were fashionable for young boys since the sitter’s own childhood. Courtenay’s fascination with this style suggests, perhaps, a lingering preoccupation with his gilded though troubled youth, in which he was described as “the most beautiful boy in England.”³ Much of Courtenay’s life was overshadowed by the scandal that ensued in 1784 when a sexual encounter between a sixteen-year-old Courtenay and William Beckford (1760–1844), an adult at twenty-four, became publicized across England.⁴ At the time, individuals convicted of sodomy, or “buggery” as it was called at the time, were subject to the death penalty.⁵

Although the story is often treated as a romantic one of forbidden love and championed as an early example of a(n inadvertently) public relationship between two men, it is important to recall, through the lens of modern mores, that William Courtenay first met William Beckford when he was ten or eleven years old and Beckford was an adult, at eight years his senior. The implications of their relationship, as it has been consistently described, are disturbing when considering the dynamic between Beckford, a nascent politician and one of the richest men in England (whose vast fortune notably derived from enslavement) and Courtenay, an orphaned viscount who was still a child. While their privilege insulated Courtenay and Beckford from legal repercussions, both subsequently spent much of their lives in exile at home or abroad. Courtenay devoted himself to the management and refurbishment of his estate at Powderham, as well as his avid artistic patronage, including commissions from important artists such as Cosway.

In 1811, after a second accusation of sodomy, Courtenay was forced to flee to New York, where he established a home on the Hudson River.⁶ In 1814, Courtenay retired to Paris, where he died in exile at his home on the Plâce Vendôme in 1835.⁷ A modern reappraisal of Courtenay’s biography suggests that while he led a vibrant and extravagant life that continues to fascinate—albeit one marred by the tragedy of living in a society not yet ready to accept him—claims of his profligacy and dissipation are highly exaggerated, likely due to the homophobic stereotypes that have colored his legacy for centuries.⁸

Notes

1. With thanks to Elle Shushan and Stephen Lloyd for confirming this identification; notes in NAMA curatorial file, 2017 and 2023. The details of Courtenay’s life have been extensively researched by Essex genealogist David Whitfield and recorded on Whitfield’s website, William Courtenay (1768–1835), May 30, 2018, https://william1768courtenay.com/welcome. Richard Cosway, William, 3rd Viscount Courtenay, 1792–93, watercolor on ivory, 2 13/16 in. (7.2 cm), Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter, 93/2010, https://rammcollections.org.uk/collections/047536af-471c-39a2-9def-55b509d2d388.

2. On the adoption of “Van Dyck costume” by Cosway and his circle, see Aileen Ribeiro, “Portraying the Fashion, Romancing the Past: Dress and the Cosways,” in Richard and Maria Cosway: Regency Artists of Taste and Fashion (Edinburgh: Scottish National Portrait Gallery, 1995), 103. Horace Walpole commented of the attendees at a ball hosted by the Duchess of Norfolk in February 1742, “There were quantities of pretty Vandykes and all kinds of old pictures walked out of their frames.” Quoted in Aileen Ribeiro, The Dress Worn at Masquerades in England, 1730 to 1790, and its Relation to Fancy Dress in Portraiture (New York: Garland, 1984), 183.

3. Courtenay’s frequent appellation as “the most beautiful boy in England,” perhaps originally by William Beckford, is widely quoted; see, for example, Duncan Wu, William Hazlitt: The First Modern Man (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 339. Courtenay’s youth is often evoked in his portraits and biographies. The adoption of his childhood nickname, “Kitty,” which was probably created by his troupe of thirteen sisters, is rampant but does not seem to have been commonly used by his contemporaries. Courtenay’s nickname and maligned legacy are discussed by Charles Courtenay, 19th Earl of Devon, in conversation with historian Kate Lister in the podcast episode “Heirs, Affairs, and Exiles: The Powderham Scandal,” Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal, and Society, podcast audio, April 17, 2023, https://shows.acast.com/betwixt-the-sheets/episodes/heirs-affairs-exiles-the-powderham-scandal.

4. The Powderham Scandal (alternately called the Beckford Scandal) has been widely discussed. For a general source, see Caroline Dakers, ed., Fonthill Recovered: A Cultural History (London: UCL Press, 2018), 77. Because of the nature of this incident, it is difficult to find scholarly publications that are not sensationalized or free from present-day polemic.

5. Accounts of the Powderham Scandal, as it has since been named, vary widely, but it seems that the man ultimately responsible for bringing the “affair” to the press was Courtenay’s own uncle, Lord Loughborough, who stood to gain substantially from the downfall of his political rival, William Beckford.

6. Courtenay was accused of engaging in “buggery” with one William Fryer, a Powderham laborer. In March 1811, “at the court of assize in Exeter Castle, the Grand Jury of the county of Devon indicted a pair of local men for committing a felony at Powderham in December 1808: ‘that detestable and abominable crime (not to be named among Christians) called Buggery’. On the 16th of March the sheriff of the county was commanded to: ‘take the said William Viscount Courtenay and William Fryer if they shall be found in his Bailiwick and them safely keep so that he may have their bodies before the Justices of our said Lord the King assigned to hold the next assizes.’” Quoted in David Whitfield, “1811: A Noble Lord Absconds,” William Courtenay (1768–1835): The Life and Times of a Gay Man (blog), June 1, 2018, https://william1768courtenay.com/2018/06/01/1811-a-noble-lord-absconds. The 1811 bill of indictment with the writ of certiorari, Rex v Viscount Courtenay, is held in the Parliamentary Archives of the United Kingdom: record HL/PO/1/52/2, https://archives.parliament.uk/collections/getrecord/GB61_HL_PO_1_52_2.

7. Courtenay also maintained a second home in France at the Château de Draveil, which still stands in Draveil. Philippe Ayrault, “Château de Draveil,” Région Ile-de-France: Inventaire général du patrimoine culturel, ed. Brigitte Blanc, 2006, https://inventaire.iledefrance.fr/dossier/IA91000838.

8. I am not the first to make this assertion; see, for example, Jana Funke and Kathryn Edwards, “Queer Objects: William Courtenay Miniature by Richard Cosway,” Out and About Exeter, December 7, 2021, https://outandabout.exeter.ac.uk/2021/12/07/queer-objects-william-courtenay-miniature-by-richard-cosway.

Probably commissioned by the sitter, William Courtenay, 3rd Viscount Courtenay and later 9th Earl of Devon (1768–1835), Powderham Castle, Exeter, 1795–1835 [1];

By descent to his nephew, Reverend Francis John Courtenay (1800–1859), Marton House, Penrith, 1835–1859 [2];

By inheritance to his wife, Emma Courtenay (1815–1895), Marton House, Penrith, 1859–1895 [3];

By descent to their son, Reginald Harrison Courtenay, Southampton and Marton House, Penrith, (1857–1925), 1895–1925;

By descent to his son, Charles William Fowle Baker-Courtenay (1889–1963), Marton House, Penrith, 1925–1928 [4];

His sale, Fine Old English Furniture and Porcelain, Miniatures, etc., the Property of Capt. Hector Greenfield, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, of C.W.F. Baker-Courtenay, Esq., of Marton House, Penrith, etc., Puttick and Simpson, London, March 23, 1928, lot 9, erroneously as Portrait of John Bellenden Ker, Esq. (grandson of John, third Lord Bellenden), 1928 [5];

Unknown owner, by November 12, 1934 [6];

Purchased from the unknown owner’s sale, Objects of Vertue, Furs and Lace, Coins and Medals, the Property of the late Rt. Hon. The Lady Northcote, Choice Miniatures, the Property of a Gentleman, etc., Christie’s, London, November 12, 1934, lot 120, erroneously as John Bellenden Ker, Esq., son of John, 3rd Lord Bellenden, by “Yates,” 1934 [7];

Unknown owner, by December 14, 1944 [8];

Purchased from the unknown owner’s sale, Valuable Jewels and Objects of Vertu, Miniatures, Watches, Jades, Ivories, etc., Sotheby’s, London, December 14, 1944, lot 145A, erroneously as John Bellenden-Ker, son of John, 3rd Lord Bellenden, by Elsie Gertrude Kehoe (1888–1967), Cliffe Dene, Saltdean, Sussex, England, 1944–1950 [9];

Purchased from her 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 153, erroneously as John Bellenden-Ker, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1950–1958 [10];

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

Notes

[1] Courtenay was a significant patron of Richard Cosway, from whom he commissioned at least five portraits of himself and several more of his sisters. Stephen Lloyd has documented how a number of Courtenay’s commissions from Cosway between 1790 and 1812 were not paid for until after Cosway’s death in 1821. Stephen Lloyd, “The Cosway Inventory of 1820: Listing Unpaid Commissions and the Contents of 20 Stratford Place, Oxford Street, London,” Volume of the Walpole Society 66 (2004): 170, 172. I am grateful to intern Bailey McCulloch and researcher Maggie Keenan for their diligent support on the provenance for this miniature.

[2] Francis John Courtenay was probably the same “Francis John” baptized in St. Mary Abbots Church in Kensington, London. His parents, listed in the baptismal register as “John and Anne Courtenay,” almost certainly made efforts to obscure the circumstances of his illegitimate birth. London Metropolitan Archives, ref. MS Dl/T/047/001, digitized on ancestrylibrary.com. Francis John’s parents’ real names were John Bellenden Ker (né Gawler, 1764–1842) and Anne Annesley (née Courtenay, 1774–1835), the sister of William Courtenay, the subject of the Nelson-Atkins miniature. At the time of Francis’s birth, his mother, styled Lady Valentia, was legally separated from her husband George Annesley, lord Valentia. In 1796, John Bellenden Gawler was found guilty of “criminal conversation” with lady Valentia. The extensive divorce proceedings are recorded in detail in David Whitfield, “Valentia v. Valentia,” William Courtenay (1768–1835), July 10, 2018, https://william1768courtenay.com/valentia-v-valentia/.

The miniature may have passed to Courtenay with other family mementos, including his mother’s portrait by Cosway, by the time of her death in 1835. The Nelson-Atkins miniature of William Courtenay, along with Cosway’s portraits of Francis Courtenay’s mother Anne Annesley and a man identified as “Henry Gawler” (more likely Francis Courtenay’s father, John Bellenden Ker, Henry Gawler’s brother), were sold as lots 8–10 in their descendant C. W. F. Baker-Courtenay’s sale in 1928; see note 5.

[3] The inheritance of several Gawler family portraits by their Courtenay descendants was described as follows: “This picture together with the next were presented in 1845 by Henry Gawler to the Rev. Francis Courtenay, from whom it passed into the possession of W. Bellenden Ker, who bequeathed to it Mrs. Courtenay, of Marton House, Penrith, who owned it in 1863.” This narrative refers to portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds of Courtenay’s maternal grandparents, John and Caroline Gawler. Algernon Graves, A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A. (London: Henry Graves, 1899), 1:353.

[4] At the 1928 sale, Baker-Courtenay sold lots 8–10, all portrait miniatures by Richard Cosway depicting his Gawler and Courtenay ancestors. The longstanding misidentification of the Nelson-Atkins miniature as “John Bellenden Kerr” seems to have begun with this sale.

[5] Described in the sales catalogue as “Portrait of John Bellenden Ker, Esq. (grandson of John, third Lord Bellenden), wearing English fancy dress of the early XVIIth century, his hair powdered, by Richard Cosway, R.A., inscribed at the back ‘Rdus. Cosway, R.A., Pinxit 1795.’” An advertisement for the sale, illustrating NAMA’s miniature, was featured in The Connoisseur 80, no. 319 (March 1928): xvi.

[6] At the 1934 sale, “a Gentleman” sold lots 114–46.

[7] Described in the sales catalogue as “A miniature portrait of John Bellenden Ker, Esq., son of John, 3rd Lord Bellenden. In Black slashed doublet with bright blue scarf and white ruff collar: powdered hair. Signed, and dated 1795 on the reverse. In oval gold frame. From the Collection of the Marquis of Ripon. From the Collection of C. W. F. Baker-Courtenay, Esq.” The miniature was unlikely to have belonged to any Marquess of Ripon, as the miniature was inherited by descent by Baker-Courtenay, and the last Marquess of Ripon, Oliver Robinson, 2nd Marquess of Ripon, died without heirs in 1923, prior to Baker-Courtenay’s 1923 sale. “Yates” is documented as the purchaser of lot 120 in Art Prices Current (London: Hutchinson, 1936), A18.

[8] At the 1944 sale, the miniature was sold under “Other Properties.”

[9] Described in the sales catalogue as “A very fine miniature of John Bellenden-Ker, son of John, 3rd Lord Bellenden, in fancy dress, in a slashed grey doublet, white ruff and blue sash, cloudy sky background, signed in full on the back and dated 1795; gold locket frame.” The miniature was sold alongside 145A, “A very fine miniature by Richard Cosway of John Gawler (solicitor) brother-in-law of the above, also in fancy dress, wearing a slashed white and yellow doublet and ruff and a cloak over his left shoulder, cloudy sky background, in gold locket frame.” These miniatures were both in the collection of C. W. F. Baker-Courtenay and sold together in 1928 (see note 2). With thanks to Maggie Keenan for her work untangling the relationship between Mrs. Kehoe and the Starrs, who considered themselves rival collectors.

[10] Described in the sales catalogue as “John Bellenden-Ker, by Richard Cosway, signed in full and dated 1795, in fancy dress, head and gaze three-quarters sinister, wearing a dark grey doublet slashed and enriched with pale blue, cloud and sky background, 3 in. John Bellenden Ker was the son of John, third lord Bellenden.” 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.

Richard Cosway, William, 3rd Viscount Courtenay, 1791, oil on canvas, 92 x 68 in. (230 x 172 cm), Charles Peregrine Courtenay, 19th Earl of Devon, Powderham Castle, Exeter.

Richard Cosway, William 3rd Viscount Courtenay, ca. 1792–93, watercolor on ivory, 2 13/16 in. (7.2 cm), Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery, Exeter, 93/2010.

Richard Cosway, William, 3rd Viscount Courtenay, later 9th Earl of Devon (1768–1835), 1793, watercolor on ivory, 3 in. (7.6 cm) high, private collection.

Richard Cosway, William, 3rd Viscount Courtenay, “Kitty,” Later 9th Earl of Devon, ca. 1810, watercolor on ivory, previously with Elle Shushan, Philadelphia.

Jean-Baptiste-Auguste Augustin, William, 3rd Viscount Courtenay, later 9th Earl of Devon, in heavily gold-embroidered black coat with high-standing gold-embroidered red collar, and high-standing lace-bordered white collar with tassels, blue cloak draped over left shoulder, 1824, watercolor on ivory, 1 1/2 in. (3.8 cm) diameter, sold at The Gordon Collection of Portrait Miniatures, Christie’s, London, November 20, 2007, lot 105.

Manner of Richard Cosway, William Courtenay, 3rd Viscount Courtenay, sold at Silver and Gold Boxes and Miscellaneous Collectors’ items; Miniatures, Silhouettes and Holy Icons, Phillips, London, July 6, 1983, lot 219.

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 67, as John Bellend-Ker.

Fine Old English Furniture and Porcelain, Miniatures, etc., the Property of Capt. Hector Greenfield, Argyll, and Sutherland Highlanders, of C. W. F. Baker-Courtenay, Esq., of Marton House, Penrith, etc. (London: Puttick and Simpson, March 23, 1928), 4, (repro.), erroneously as John Bellenden Kerr, Esq..

advertisement, Connoisseur 80, no. 319 (March 1928): xvi, (repro.).

Objects of Vertue, Furs and Lace, Coins, and Medals, the Property of the late Rt. Hon. The Lady Northcote, Choice Miniatures, the Property of a Gentleman, etc. (London: Christie’s, November 12, 1934), 19, (repro.), erroneously as John Bellenden Ker, Esq..

Catalogue of Valuable Jewels and Objects of Vertu, Miniatures, Watches, Jades, Ivories, etc. (London: Sotheby’s, December 14, 1944), 12, erroneously as John Bellenden-Ker.

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), erroneously as John Bellenden-Ker.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 264, erroneously as John Bellend-Ker [sic].

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 67, 26, (repro.), erroneously as John Bellend-Ker [sic].

Blythe Sobol, “An Outsized Passion for Miniatures: The Starr Collection of Portrait Miniatures at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,” in Portrait Miniatures: Artists, Functions, Techniques and Collections (Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2023), 238–39.