James Scouler, Portrait of a Man, 1778

Chicago:

Blythe Sobol, “James Scouler, Portrait of a Man, 1778,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1502.

MLA:

Sobol, Blythe. “James Scouler, Portrait of a Man, 1778,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1502.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

This miniature by James Scouler appears, at first glance, to depict a soldier wearing the trademark scarlet coat of the British military, which often included a blue collar.¹ However, the white and blue striped waistcoat and lack of lace, epaulettes, or other trimmings suggest that this unknown man was a civilian.² Contrasting collars were common in the 1770s, as was a patriotic tricolor color scheme, exemplified by the Windsor uniform worn by members of the royal household beginning in 1777. This particular garment resembles a sporting coat worn for hunting or golf, pastimes of a man of leisure, but the lack of ornate adornment suggests more modest tastes.³

The middle-aged sitter regards us with a frank gaze, his hair unpowdered. The lack of powder is not a complete anomaly for the late 1770s, but in this case, because the sitter could afford to have his portrait painted, his unpowdered hair is suggestive not of poverty but of studied simplicity.⁴ In turn, Scouler painted him without condescension or flattery, delineating the wisps of thinning brown hair atop the sitter’s head as carefully as the soft side curls over his ears. The creases and wrinkles around his eyes, made more pronounced by his faint smile, are underscored with rings of deep red, in contrast to the peachy tones stippled across his cheeks, nose, and lips. The saturated colors of this miniature reflect Scouler’s liberal use of gum arabic, which lends watercolor the sheen and vibrancy of an oil painting.

Scouler’s miniatures are notable for his close attention to details of clothing. While the sitter in this portrait is simply dressed, Scouler uses an economy of means to define the scalloped white whorls of the sitter’s lace cravat with a few deft flourishes. Likewise, a densely applied band of black and deeper blue shading along the collar approximates the sheen and depth of velvet, a common material for coat collars. Like the forthright appearance of the sitter himself, Scouler’s portrayal is modest yet nimble, reflecting his skill for capturing the character and aspirations of his sitters.

Notes

1. The colors of the coat and facings denoted the regiment to which the wearer belonged. Several cavalry regiments, for example, adopted the combination of a scarlet coat with blue facings. Such variations are described in John Luard, A History of the Dress of the British Soldier from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (London: William Clowes and Sons, 1852), 100.

2. Military attire was highly prescribed, and a waistcoat such as this one in blue-striped silk would have been against regulation; military waistcoats were usually white or red wool. For further details, see Hew Strachan, British Military Uniforms 1768–1796: The Dress of the British Army from Official Sources (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1975).

3. If it is, in fact, a hunting coat, the contrasting colors of the coat and collar—and often engraved insignias on the buttons—would denote the hunt in which its wearer participated. On traditional hunting attire, see Donna Landry, The Invention of the Countryside: Hunting, Walking, and Ecology in English Literature, 1671–1831 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), 14.

4. On the social impact of unpowdered hair in the 1770s, see Manushag N. Powell, “Class and Social Status: Hair and Social Boundaries,” in A Cultural History of Hair in the Age of Enlightenment, ed. Margaret K. Powell and Joseph Roach (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 162.

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. 52, as Unknown Man.

British Portrait Miniatures: An Exhibition Arranged for the Period of the Edinburgh International Festival, The Arts Council of Great Britain, Edinburgh, August 20–September 18, 1965, no. 180, as An 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. 52, p. 21, (repro.), as Unknown Man.