George Engleheart, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1800

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “George Engleheart, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1800,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1390.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “George Engleheart, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1800,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1390.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

This unidentified man’s caramel-colored eyes meet the viewer’s, but attention quickly shifts to the two heavy, black arched brows looming above. Known for depicting bushy-browed sitters, George Engleheart does not disappoint with his Portrait of Man from around 1800.¹ Although this miniature is unsigned and undated, its style, large size, and the confidence of its mark making suggest that Engleheart painted it toward the end of his career (1795–1813). He only started signing miniatures after 1810, to differentiate them from those of his nephew, John Cox Dillman Engleheart (1784–1862).²

The sitter wears a conservative double-breasted brown frock coat and an anomalous hairstyle. Parted down the middle with longer fringe on the sides, his powdered hair is out of step with London’s fashion trends: following the 1795 hair powder tax, people typically wore their hair natural. Engleheart’s sitter may have been a neighbor in Bedfont, the town where the artist had a country home, which would explain the hairstyle and older country squire attire.³ Engleheart spent much time in Bedfont after initially purchasing an estate there in 1783, and he is known to have painted at least three other locals.⁴

While Engleheart does not shy away from accurately depicting the man’s features, down to every brow hair, he imbues his sitter with a gentle countenance in his oversized eyes and pleasant expression. With the soft color palette of blue-grays and warm tawny tones that appear both in the background and in the sitter’s coat, the miniature appears subdued; however, its size—the largest Engleheart in the Nelson-Atkins collection—amplifies its presence.

Notes

1. The sitter’s eyebrows are the same length and width as his sideburns. Together, his almond-shaped eyes and eyebrows occupy at least one-third of his face.

2. Daphne Foskett, “George Engleheart,” in A Dictionary of British Miniature Painters (New York: Praeger, 1972), 1:262.

3. Poll Books and Electoral Registers, Bedfont Parish, 1802, p. 210, London Metropolitan Archives and Guildhall Library. Engleheart is listed in Bedfont for the 1802 poll year.

4. Derek Sherborn, An Inspector Recalls (Leicester: Book Guild, 2003), 9; George Williamson and Henry Engleheart, George Engleheart 1750–1829: Miniature Painter to George III (London: George Bell and Sons, 1902), 16, 17. According to Sherborn, “Engleheart painted William Sherborn’s miniature as a gift, as well as one of Francis Sherborn and another of Peter Henderson, deputy lieutenant of the county, who lived in the village.” Dr. Charles Davies Sherborn donated Portrait of William Sherborn, of Bedfont, 1818, watercolor on buff paper, and Portrait of Peter Henderson, ca. 1780–1800, watercolor over graphite, to the British Museum, London, 1931,1022.1 (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1931-1022-1) and 1918,0523.1 (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1918-0523-1). Engleheart’s watercolor Portrait of Mr. Francis Sherborn, 1822, sold at “Spring Country House Sale,” Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers, UK, March 10, 2015, lot 152.

Unknown owner, by December 19, 1949 [1];

Purchased from the unknown owner’s sale, Catalogue of Objects of Art and Vertu, Miniatures, Coins, and Glass Paperweights, Christie, Manson, and Woods, London, December 19, 1949, lot 108, as Portrait of a Gentleman, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 1949–1958 [2];

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

Notes

[1] In the Christie’s December 19, 1949 sale, “Different Properties” sold lots 98–119.

[2] The annotated catalogue for this sale is located at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Miller Nichols Library. According to Art Prices Current 27 (1952): A52, Leggatt purchased lot 108 for £27 6s. 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 Art and Vertu, Miniatures, Coins, and Glass Paperweights (London: Christie, Manson, and Woods, December 19, 1949), 12, as Portrait of a Gentleman.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 84, p. 30, (repro.), as attributed to George Engleheart, Unknown Man.