Unknown, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1810

Chicago:

Blythe Sobol, “Unknown, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1810,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1700.

MLA:

Sobol, Blythe. “Unknown, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1810,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1700.

This unassuming portrait of a man seemingly defies categorization, with various experts debating whether it is American, Scottish, or some combination thereof.¹ It was originally attributed to the Boston-based miniaturist William M. S. Doyle (1769–1828),² and it does share some characteristics of his work, such as details of clothing rendered in swift, dark strokes over a flat wash of color.³ Unfortunately, the diversity of styles Doyle adopted makes it difficult to attribute this miniature to him with any certainty.⁴ Furthermore, Doyle typically signed his works, while the Nelson-Atkins miniature does not have an inscription and lacks the white flecks on the pupils he typically used.

The problem of this work’s attribution is further complicated by the significant influence of British miniaturists on American artists around the turn of the nineteenth century. While some American artists like Henry Benbridge (1743–1812) traveled to England for training, British miniaturists—including Archibald (1765–1835) and Alexander Robertson (1768–1841), Robert Field (ca. 1769–1819) and Edward Miles (1752–1828)—conversely flocked to the United States to expand their clientele. As a result, American-born miniaturists had the opportunity to not only view the works of painters trained in England, Scotland, or Ireland but to learn from them, either through independent apprenticeships or through the Columbian Academy of Painting, founded by the Robertson brothers in New York in 1792.⁵ Many miniature cases and other supplies were still being exported from London at this time (Fig. 1).

Until further research can be conducted, the broad attribution to an Anglo-American artist indicates the contradictions inherent in the style and technique of this miniature. What is not in question is its date of about 1810, judging by the style of the man’s clothing and his fashionable “Brutus” haircut. The manner of this unknown artist was not without sophistication, with handling that ably rendered variations in materials and textures, from the soft fullness of a tied cravat to the crisp tailoring of a wool coat.

Notes

1. Elle Shushan, Carol Aiken, and Stephen Lloyd, during visits in 2017, 2018, and 2023, respectively, have all shared their varying opinions on this miniature without landing on any one artist or geography definitively. Notes in NAMA curatorial files.

2. In 2017, miniatures specialist Elle Shushan asserted the miniature was British, not American, and the attribution to Doyle was removed. Elle Shushan, 2017, notes in NAMA curatorial files.

3. See, for example, William M. S. Doyle, Jacob Porter (1783–1846), B.A. 1803, M.A. 1806, 1816, watercolor on ivory, 3 3/8 x 2 3/4 in. (8.6 x 7 cm), Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, https://artgallery.yale.edu/collections/objects/29475.

4. Aiken, 2018, notes in NAMA curatorial file.

5. It is possible that the Scottish influence Lloyd has observed in this miniature could indicate the artist’s training by a Scottish-born artist, such as the Robertsons. Lloyd, 2023, notes in NAMA curatorial files. For more on the Columbian Academy and the Robertsons’ subsequent institution, the Academy of Painting and Drawing, see Megan Holloway Fort, “Archibald and Alexander Robertson and Their Schools, the Columbian Academy of Painting, and the Academy of Painting and Drawing, New York, 1791–1835” (PhD diss., City University of New York, 2006).

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.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 265.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 232, p. 76, (repro.), as Unknown Man.