George Engleheart, Portrait of a Man, 1811

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “George Engleheart, Portrait of a Man, 1811,” 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: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1392.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “George Engleheart, Portrait of a Man, 1811,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1392.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

George Engleheart’s signed and dated miniature of this young man is representative of the third and final phase of the artist’s career, given its relatively large size, the cursive “E” signature, inscribed verso, and use of a more somber palette to model his sitter’s features.¹ While the sitter’s identity remains unknown, the miniature’s backing card provides some context. The card contains an advertisement for Leith and Hull Shipping Company, with a list of their vessels and agents, and the date of “January 1811,” which potentially narrows the date of this portrait to the very month (Fig. 1 and 2).² Leith and Hull was based in Edinburgh, but their ships frequently sailed to London, so it is not surprising that their card ended up in Engleheart’s studio.³

The year 1811 was a prosperous one for Engleheart, with his earnings increasing by more than four hundred pounds from the previous year.⁴ He raised his portrait rate from seventeen to nineteen guineas, perhaps in an effort to narrow the gap between his rates and those of his nephew, John Cox Dillman Engleheart (1784–1862), who earned twice as much.⁵

George Engleheart’s full range of techniques are on display in this portrait: the loose strokes of the sitter’s powdered and tousled hair, the zigzag opaque highlights atop the accordion-folded frills of his shirt, and the blue stippling around his under-eyes. His gaze, however, reveals a flaw: his slanted left eye faces forward, but his right eye appears slightly off-center, a difference that is not immediately obvious but could be explained by either multiple sittings or a wandering eye.

The sitter wears a rich blue coat with an impeccable waistcoat and ruffles, as well as a thick white cravat whose layers are visible as they crisscross in front and end in a bow. His smart attire and manicured appearance signify a certain level of affluence. The handsome sitter, whose off-center gaze attracts the viewer’s attention, presents himself in this portrait as an object to be viewed and admired.

Notes

1. George Williamson and Henry Engleheart, George Engleheart 1750–1829: Miniature Painter to George III (London: George Bell and Sons, 1902), 34. Between 1804 and 1813, Engleheart averaged about seventy-two miniatures per year.

2. A similar card fills in what is missing: “W. W. Bromby and G. Holden & Sons [. . .] / Montague—J. Stor[e]y / Leith— John Tyrie”; see The Edinburgh Almanack, and Imperial Register, for 1814 (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1814), 282. Also visible is a handwritten math equation, adding 30 and 106. On the other side of the backing card is a handwritten note addressed to “Peter.” Although it is not in Engleheart’s handwriting, the note partially reads, “Sirs, You will [. . .]/ much by addressing / goods you may [. . .]/ future to my address / place for Hull—/ be shipt free of [. . .] / Yours [. . .]”.

3. Their office was located at 66 Shore in Leith, Edinburgh.

4. Williamson and Engleheart, George Engleheart 1750–1829, 39, 45. He earned £959 in 1810 and £1,396 in 1811.

5. Roger and Carmela Arturi Phillips, “The True and Flawed Genius of John Engleheart (1784–1862),” in Portrait Miniatures: Artists, Functions and Collections, ed. Bernd Pappe and Juliane Schmieglitz-Otten (Petersberg, Germany: Michael Imhof, The Tansey Miniatures Foundation, 2018), 199. It remains unclear whether John Cox Dillman Engleheart was charging double his uncle’s rate or was more prolific.

Elsie Gertrude Kehoe (1888–1967), Saltdean, Sussex, by June 15, 1950 [1];

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 163, as A Man, 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 [2];

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

Notes

[1] Elsie Gertrude Noble married Bartle Charles Philip Kehoe (1886–1949) in 1913 in Salford, Lancashire. The couple lived at 29 Harrington Gds., South Kensington in 1927; 1 Royal Crescent, Marine Parade, Brighton in 1929; and Roedean Crescent, “Four Winds” in 1939. They do not appear to have had children. Bartle died on November 2, 1949, and Elsie died at 60 Greenways Ovingdean, Brighton, on December 16, 1967. All according to records found on Ancestrylibrary.com.

Martha Jane Starr’s correspondence to her friend, Betty Hogg, from March 22, 1949: “A Mrs. Kehoe is a collector over there [London] and I was referred to her last year and just recently she mailed me a catalogue from Agnew with the sale prices of miniatures paid and some fine ones went very reasonably in comparison with American prices. If the distance isn’t too great perhaps you could phone or contact her for her opinion on the numbers and portraits I’m listing.” An undated letter from Mrs. Hogg, following an auction “. . . your lots 25 and 48 had me worried they seemed so popular! I did not call Mrs. Kehoe for I thought she might be a competitor and bid against me!!” The Starrs mentioned them in Antiques magazine in 1961 (p. 440): “A Mr. and Mrs. Kehoe of Brighton gave us gracious hospitality while showing us theirs [collection of miniatures].”

[2] “A Miniature of a Man, by George Engleheart, signed with initial, nearly full face, powdered hair, white cravat, frilled vest and rich blue coat, signed and dated 1811 at back, 3½in.” According to an attached price list, Leggatt bought lot 163 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.

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 A Man.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 83, p. 30, (repro.), as Unknown Man.

Notes

[1] The miniature is reproduced in a record at The Courtauld’s Witt Library with the caption, “No. 43 / George Engleheart (1750–1829) / Portrait of a Man / Watercolor on ivory / 3 1/4 x 2 5/8” / SUBMITTED TO CONNOISSEUR”. No record of its reproduction in The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs has been located.