Unknown, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1780

Chicago:

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “Unknown, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1780,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1670.

MLA:

Marcereau DeGalan, Aimee. “Unknown, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1780,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1670.

This portrait miniature, formerly attributed to Scottish artist Henry Raeburn (1756–1823), presents a challenging puzzle. The exceptional skill and confidence in execution is unlike the comparatively unsophisticated style of Raeburn’s known miniatures. The portrait probably dates to around 1780 and depicts a Scottish lawyer or merchant in his fifties, attired in the professional wig typical of the period.

After initially associating the portrait with Raeburn, some scholars note significant disparities between this work and the artist’s documented miniatures.¹ Raeburn’s early miniatures from the 1770s exhibit a level of naivete when compared to the refined quality of this piece.² Moreover, while Raeburn’s artistic prowess notably improved in the 1780s, documented examples of his later miniatures remain scarce, making direct comparisons challenging.

The portrait does, however, evoke a Raeburn-like sense of breadth, confidence, and solidity uncommon in late eighteenth-century miniatures. This resemblance prompts cautious consideration of Raeburn as the possible artist, although a definitive attribution remains elusive. Consequently, the prevailing conclusion is to acknowledge the work as “artist unknown,” pending further research or discovery of comparable works.

Notes

1. I am grateful to Lucinda Lax, former curator of paintings at the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, and presently curator of paintings and sculpture at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, who offered her insight on this miniature, as well as Stephen Lloyd, curator at Knowsley Hall, England. Correspondence from Lax, October 16, 2018, and Lloyd, April 3, 2019, NAMA curatorial files.

2. As communicated by Lax and Lloyd; correspondence in NAMA curatorial files.

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.

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 194, as by Henry Raeburn, Unknown Man.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 194, p. 66 (repro.), as by Henry Raeburn, Unknown Man.