Sampson Towgood Roch, Portrait of a Man, 1797

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “Sampson Towgood Roch, Portrait of a Man, 1797,” 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, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1490.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “Sampson Towgood Roch, Portrait of a Man, 1797,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1490.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

Much like Sampson Towgood Roch’s other portraits in the Starr Collection (F58-60/119 and F58-60/121), this miniature is awash with peachy colored pigments. Notably, the facial features exhibit a sculptural quality, accentuated by bold outlines around the sitter’s nose, eyelids, and top lip. His pale complexion blends seamlessly with his powdered and coiffed wig. The composition has an equal distribution of blue and pink; the shades of muted red would give the sitter a weightless appearance if not for the anchoring effect of his solid dark blue coat and piercing blue eyes.

The sitter’s rose-colored cravat and vest suggest that some pigment discoloration may have occurred in the 220-plus years since they were painted. Alternatively, Roch might have preferred this rosy palette and made it his signature style—although it softens in his later works. Even the vest’s pearly buttons are completed in monochromatic salmon pink. The sky background is also a mix of blue and orange. The only variant color in the portrait is a glimmer of gold on his coat buttons.

This portrait is the earliest work by Roch in the Nelson-Atkins collection, bearing the artist’s signature and date, “S. Roch / 1797,” in graceful cursive script. Roch, known for his career as a miniaturist in Bath from 1792 to 1822,¹ imbued this work with his hallmark feature—an incipient smile that gives most of his patrons a kind demeanor.² The sitter was likely a high-status individual living in Bath who may have commissioned this portrait to mark a celebrated appointment or a new business venture.

Notes

1. Paul Caffrey, “Sampson Towgood Roch, Miniaturist,” Irish Arts Review 3, no. 4 (Winter 1986): 16.

2. Caffrey, “Sampson Towgood Roch, Miniaturist,” 19.

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. 165, as 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. 165, p. 57 (repro.), as Unknown Man.