Unknown, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1840

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “Unknown, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1840,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1715.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “Unknown, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1840,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1715.

This portrait of an unknown man appears to be painted ad vivum, with its fluid brushstrokes and convincing facial features. The sitter has a full and soft profile, his hair defined with curving lines of orange, brown, and blue. His subdued, tender demeanor is conveyed by oversized brown eyes, sleepy eyelids, brows that angle down, and lips that curve slightly up. He wears a black wool frockcoat or tailcoat, a satin vest, a tied cravat, and a gold watch chain. The artist has accentuated every curve of his attire, adding light blue highlights at each fabric edge.

Although the artist remains unknown, a miniature of a man that recently appeared at auction has a gilt foliate case that is very similar to that of the present portrait.¹ Attributed to the circle of the self-trained miniaturist William Egley (English, 1798–1870), the portrait bears a painterly style that also matches; both sitters have a lifelike quality, rendered with full lips and a highlight atop their bottom lips, as well as oversized, almond-shaped eyes. Although these and other features—like the blue shadows in the face—bear a resemblance to Egley’s works and to each other, Egley regularly signed his work, and his portraits generally have a higher degree of realism.² It is possible that both these portraits were done by a follower of Egley or by the artist’s son William Maw Egley (English, 1826–1916) while training under his father.³

Notes

1. See Circle of William Egley, Portrait Miniature of a Gentleman, undated, watercolor on ivory, gilt metal frame with a lock of hair, 2 15/16 x 1 7/8 in. (7.5 x 4.8 cm), previously in the collection of Wheeler Antiques, Royston, Hertfordshire. For a similar Scottish case from the 1840s, see Unknown, Portrait of a Man, ca. 1835, F58-60/156 in this catalogue.

2. See William Egley, J. Stanley Esq., 1855, watercolor on ivory, 2 in. (5.1 cm) high, illustrated in Fine Portrait Miniatures, Bonhams, Knightsbridge, November 23, 2011, lot 148, https://www.bonhams.com/auction/19010/lot/148/william-egley-british-1798-1870-j-stanley-esq-wearing-black-coat-waistcoat-stock-and-tie-white-chemise/.

3. Few miniatures by William Maw Egley exist. For one known example, see William Maw Egley, An Unknown Child, Called Charles Lawton, 1856, watercolor on ivory, 2 1/16 x 1 5/8 in. (5.2 x 4.2 cm), Victoria and Albert Museum, London, P.174-1931, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O82362/an-unknown-child-called-charles-portrait-miniature-egley-william-maw.

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. 234, as Unknown Man.

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, as Portrait of 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. 234, p. 76, (repro.), as Unknown Man.