Thomas Forster, Portrait of a Cleric, 1704

Chicago:

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “Thomas Forster, Portrait of a Cleric, 1704,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1220.

MLA:

Marcereau DeGalan, Aimee. “Thomas Forster, Portrait of a Cleric, 1704,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1220.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

Thomas Forster’s portrait of a male clergyman showcases the artist’s meticulous attention to detail and sensitive rendering. Forster probably created this portrait ad vivum, distinguishing it from the copies of oil paintings that were typical of his contemporaries who also used the medium of plumbago (graphite on vellum, prepared card, or paper).¹

The term “plumbago” was coined due to the mistaken belief that graphite was a type of lead. The creation of small graphite portraits on vellum originated in continental Europe during the early seventeenth century as an extension of the book trade.² During the Restoration period in England, artists who were primarily engravers, such as David Loggan (1634–1692) and Robert White (1645–1703), returned from exile on the continent and transitioned to plumbago, due to their understanding of the importance of line and contrast.³ These artists often made printed versions of their own plumbagos. In contrast, Forster was not an engraver, and only a few of his plumbagos have been replicated.⁴ The popularity of this artform in England was further bolstered in the third quarter of the seventeenth century by the discovery of rich deposits of exceptionally pure graphite in Borrowdale, Cumberland; previously it had been imported from mines in Bavaria and the Austrian Alps.⁵

Forster was one of the last and finest practitioners of this medium. The unparalleled quality of his work is apparent in his portraits, of which the Nelson-Atkins possesses three additional very fine examples,⁶ but his known subjects are rarely of great historical significance. This may have been deliberate, as Forster might have catered to a more modest and private level of society.⁷ This theory is supported by the present portrait of a male clergyman, whose sober character and attire is arguably better suited to this kind of finely drawn and intimately scaled monochromatic drawing than to a full-length swagger portrait in oil.

Forster’s highly refined approach to details, including the intricate curls of his sitter’s wig and the creases of his closely fitted suit—in particular, the way he renders soft puckers in the fabric along the row of buttons and under the arm—reveal the artist’s keen awareness of contours, highlights, and shadows. English clergy dressed somberly, in black suits with a white stock or cravat, often augmented with white bands (known as Geneva bands, so called for the birthplace of the Calvinist Reformation). These bands were made of two rectangles of bleached cotton or linen tied in the front of the collar.⁸

Forster painted a number of men of the cloth, including John Newte (1655?–1716), rector of Tiverton; Thomas Green (1658–1738), bishop of Ely; and Humphrey Hody (1659–1707), archdeacon of Oxford, among others.⁹ These individuals, like the sitter seen here, present as quiet, sober men, attributes likely shared by Thomas Forster himself. The historical significance of Forster’s subject matter may be modest, but the quality of his artwork is exceptional.

Notes

1. Biographer C. F. Bell notes that “The statement made in the account of the artist in Thieme and Becker’s Allgemeines Kunstler-lexikon . . . that Forster’s miniatures in black lead were generally copied from oil pictures by Kneller and other painters is completely mistaken.” See C. F. Bell and Rachel Poole, “English Seventeenth-Century Portrait Drawings in Oxford Collections, Part II,” Walpole Society 14 (1925–1926): 73.

2. Katherine Coombs, “Thomas Forster,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, September 23, 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/9917.

3. Coombs, “Thomas Forster.”

4. Several of these are in London’s National Portrait Gallery and the British Museum.

5. Shirley Milledge, “Graphite,” in The Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner (New York: Grove’s Dictionaries, 1996), 13:315, cited in Marjorie Wieseman, “Between Paint and Print: Plumbago Portraits in Britain and the Netherlands,” in Julie Aronson and Marjorie Wieseman, Perfect Likeness: European and American Portrait Miniatures from the Cincinnati Art Museum (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 33.

6. See Thomas Forster, Portrait of a Woman, 1704, F58-60/53.1,2; Thomas Forster, Portrait of a Woman, 1703, F58-60/54.1,2; and Thomas Forster, Portrait of a Man, 1705, F58-60/55.1,2.

7. David Blayney Brown, “Thomas Forster,” in Turner, ed., The Dictionary of Art, 11:320.

8. The word “bands” is usually plural because they consisted of two pieces of linen cloth, which in a religious context relate to the two tablets of the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses. See Cynthia Agyeiwaa Kusi, Sarah Asheley Quansah, and Fredrick Boakye-Yiadom, “‘Decoding’ the Clerical Vestments of the Methodist Bishop in Charge of Sekondi Dioceses,” Fashion and Textiles Review 1, no. 2 (2019): 83.

9. See Michael Vandergucht, after Forster, John Newte (1755?–1716), engraving on paper, 6 1/2 x 3 7/8 in., National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG D31491, https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw143054. A portrait of Thomas Green and his wife by Forster was offered for sale at Bonham’s on November 22, 2006, lot 40, https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/13754/lot/40/. Michael Vandergucht also engraved a portrait of Humphrey Hody after Forster; Michael Vandergucht, after Thomas Forster, Humphrey Hody, early 18th century, line engraving on paper, 10 5/8 x 7 1/8 in. National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG D31466, https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw142994.

Unknown owner, by 1950 [1];

Purchased from the unknown owner’s sale, Fine Objects of Vertu, Miniatures, Ivories, Gold Boxes, Etc., Sotheby’s, London, December 14, 1950, lot 97, as Six Plumbago Miniatures, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, December 14, 1950–1958 [2];

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

Notes

[1] In the Sotheby’s December 14, 1950, sale, “Other Properties” sold lots 53–100.

[2] Described in the sales catalogue as, “Six Plumbago Miniatures by Thomas Forster, all signed and dated between the years 1703 and 1715, the three men wearing wigs and the three ladies, probably sisters, all similarly posed, in burr-wood frames, oval, 4 1/2 in.” The annotated catalogue for this sale is located at University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Miller Nichols Library. The annotations are most likely by Mr. or Mrs. Starr. Lot 97 is annotated in pencil with “£65” written to the left of the lot number. According to an attached price list, Leggatt bought lot 97 for “£65.” 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.

The group of six plumbagos that sold includes the three other Forsters in the Nelson-Atkins collection: Portrait of a Woman, 1704, F58-60/53.1,2; Portrait of a Woman, 1703, F58-60/54.1,2; and Portrait of a Man, 1705, F58-60/55.1,2, as well as two now located at the Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK: Portrait of a Woman, 1705, 1958.17.1 and Portrait of a Man, 1703, 1958.17.2. All are numbered 1–6 in pencil on the case back. Many thanks to Tiffany Roberts, Assistant Registrar at the Philbrook, who allowed us access to the Starr Miniatures’ object files.

Catalogue of Fine Objects of Vertu, Miniatures, Ivories, Gold Boxes, Etc. (London: Sotheby’s, December 14, 1950), lot 97, as Six Plumbago Miniatures.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 33, p. 16, (repro.), as Unknown Man.