Andrew Plimer, Portrait of a Man, 1785

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “Andrew Plimer, Portrait of a Man, 1785,” 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. 3, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1458.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “Andrew Plimer, Portrait of a Man, 1785,” 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. 3, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024. doi: 10.37764/8322.5.1458.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

This three-quarters profile of a man is unique among Andrew Plimer’s works for its lifelike quality, and yet Plimer is clearly still grappling with anatomical inaccuracies. The sitter’s forehead appears overly rounded, and Plimer struggles with the depth perception of the sitter’s left eye, turning it down on the outside edge and painting it too large. The facial features are harsh, with Plimer outlining the sitter’s bulbous eyes and aquiline nose. Specks of black in the white cravat suggest that Plimer used lead white in his highlights that have turned black due to exposure to sulfur compounds; he does not seem to have continued this practice in his later work.¹

These imperfections may be accounted for because this work is early in Plimer’s career. He presumably finished his portrait miniature training around 1785, since he began exhibiting at the Royal Academy the very next year.² Art historian George Charles Williamson first speculated that Plimer trained under Richard Cosway (1742–1821), probably because Plimer’s later works exhibit similar freedom in handling and stylized facial features—whereas this early miniature instead resembles the tight brushwork and rosy disposition of John Smart’s (1741–1811) work.

The Starr Collection has another Plimer portrait of a man dated 1785, which offers a useful stylistic comparison to this work. While the sitter wears a similar blue coat, his portrait is completed in a looser, softer manner, with a light gray background. The present work is distinct in its dotted, olive-toned background and its tortoiseshell-lined snuffbox case. Plimer’s mature portraits are recognizable by their sky backgrounds with cross-hatching, as seen in the Nelson-Atkins Portrait of a Woman. This 1785 work documents not only Plimer’s early style but also the development of his techniques.

Notes

1. According to visiting conservator Carol Aiken, March 19–23, 2018, notes in NAMA curatorial files.

2. Andrew Plimer exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1786–88, 1792–94, 1796–97, 1799–1803, 1805–7, and 1810; see The Exhibition of The Royal Academy (London: T. Cadell, 1786), 4, 8, 12.

Unknown owner, by May 21, 1953 [1];

Purchased from the unknown owner’s sale, Portrait Miniatures, Rare Table Clocks, Watches, and Other Objects of Vertu, Sotheby’s, London, May 21, 1953, lot 62, 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, 1953–1958 [2];

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

Notes

[1] In the 1953 sales catalogue, “Various Properties” sold lots 12–78.

[2] Described in the catalogue as “A Miniature of a Man, by Andrew Plimer, signed and dated 1785, head and gaze three-quarters sinister, powdered hair en queue, wearing a white cravat and bright blue coat, oval, 1 5/8 in., inset in a circular composition Snuff Box, 2 3/4 in.” The sales is located at the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Miller Nichols Library and is likely annotated by Mr. or Mrs. Starr with a circled lot number, “£24,” and “67.20.” Leggatt Brothers bought lot 62 for 24 pounds. 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 Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 173, as Unknown Man.

Catalogue of Portrait Miniatures, Rare Table Clocks, Watches, and Other Objects of Vertu (London: Sotheby’s, May 21, 1953), 8, 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. 173, p. 59, (repro.), as Unknown Man.