Richard Cosway, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1795

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “Richard Cosway, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 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/10.37764/8322.5.1326.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “Richard Cosway, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1326.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

Cosway’s signature limited palette is evident in this unidentified portrait of a woman, awash with gray and white. The sitter’s cloudy, charcoal-colored eyes are in sharp contrast to the miniature’s vibrant blue-sky background. The brightest pigment appears in her flushed, plump cheeks, which match the peachy orange of her firmly pressed-together lips. The ruffles of her muslin dress trail down her shoulder and across her torso. Cosway’s brushwork is sketchy; he outlines the intricate creases of her clothing in gray, with opaque strokes of white filling in between.

The miniature’s ivory base enhances the sitter’s alabaster complexion, peeking through areas of her chest, dress, and the top of her cap. The cap, much like her powdered hair, was a fashionable staple at the time.¹ The woman’s graceful long neck and her pristine white dress present an air of purity and elegance. Despite her unassuming appearance, the sitter must have been a significant patron to sit for this famed and fashionable artist. The portrait’s simplicity is mirrored in its housing, a gilt copper alloy case. Cosway’s lively brushwork immortalizes fleeting charm and youth, commemorating a woman whose identity, for now, remains lost to history.

Notes

1. Georgine de Courtais, Women’s Headdress and Hairstyles in England from AD 600 to the Present Day (London: B. T. Batsford, 1973), 98.

A member of the Gutekunst family, probably Otto Charles Henry Gutekunst (German, ca. 1865–1946), London [1];

Possibly with Paul and Dominic Colnaghi and Company, London, by 1894 [2];

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] A label formerly affixed to the verso of the object reads, “Gutekunst Collect.” Otto Charles Henry Gutekunst and Richard Gutekunst were the sons of Heinrich Gutekunst (1833–1914), an auctioneer from Stuttgart. Otto was a German art dealer, who then became a naturalized British citizen and lived in London.

[2] In 1894, Otto Gutekunst and his business partner Edmond Deprez joined the Paul and Dominic Colnaghi and Company, London. See “P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., Ltd.,” Natinonal Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.703.html. Gutekunst retired in 1939 and died eight years later.
Gutekunst owned numerous John Downman (English, 1750–1824) pastels and watercolors, for example, which then passed into Colnaghi’s hands; see provenance for Downman, Portrait of an Admiral (1788; British Museum, London, 1967,1014.193, https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1967-1014-193) and Portrait of a Lady (1785; British Museum, 1967,1014.192, https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1967-1014-192). The present miniature by Cosway may have been sold by Colnaghi after Gutekunst’s death in 1946. According to Ben Taylor, Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, the Colnaghi records only go back as far as 1911. The only Cosway in these records was a portrait of a young gentleman in a green coat, acquired by Colnaghi in 1929. See correspondence between Maggie Keenan, NAMA, and Ben Taylor, Waddesdon Manor, October 20, 2023, NAMA curatorial files.

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 60, as Unknown Lady.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 60, p. 24, (repro.), as Unknown Lady.