Unknown, Portrait of James Edmonstone Buchanan, Ensign of the 39th Regiment of Foot, 1799

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “Unknown, Portrait of James Edmonstone Buchanan, Ensign of the 39th Regiment of Foot, 1799,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1685.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “Unknown, Portrait of James Edmonstone Buchanan, Ensign of the 39th Regiment of Foot, 1799,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1685.

A recently discovered label identifies this sitter as James Edmonstone Buchanan (ca. 1777–1809).¹ Buchanan was the son of John Buchanan and Murray Kynynmound of Auchlessie and Arnprior, Scotland.² John and Murray had seven children: Alexander Buchanan of Arnprior (d. 1845), Thomas Buchanan of Powis (1774–1842), James Edmonstone Buchanan, and four daughters.³ James was the youngest son, born sometime after 1775.⁴

James joined the 39th Regiment of Foot as an ensign in April 1796, serving alongside his older brother Alexander.⁵ This miniature of James likely dates to shortly after he joined the regiment, which soon moved to occupy the Dutch colony of Demerara (present-day Guyana).⁶ In 1798, James purchased the commission of lieutenant of the 22nd Regiment of Foot, a position that lasted only a year.⁷ He returned to the 39th Regiment of Foot in June 1799, purchasing the higher rank of captain from Alexander, who retired in 1799.⁸

In February 1800, James shifted regiments to assume the role of lieutenant of the 3rd Regiment of Foot Guards, a company he remained with until his untimely death on July 28, 1809, at the Battle of Talavera.⁹ Buchanan died unmarried, survived by his father and two brothers. A family friend, John Ramsay, wrote that the news of Buchanan’s death “was a dreadful shock to his family. If not the ablest, he was the most amiable and gentle-mannered of the whole. And his discretion in a great metropolis did him honour.”¹⁰

Ramsay’s description of Buchanan’s agreeable nature accords with the label mentioned at the outset of this essay, which notes “his sweet countenance.” The label further points to clues not only about Buchanan but also about the unknown artist who painted him, as well as the miniature’s provenance. The label’s inscription—“your / Uncle”—implies that the portrait miniature was inherited by either Alexander or Thomas and eventually descended to one of their children. Buchanan’s brother discusses the quality of the likeness, remarking that “the upper part of the / Face [is] like but the / mouth totally unlike” and specifying that the artist’s depiction “gives a different / expression,” indicating that this slightly stiff rendering was perhaps not painted from life.

The miniature resembles Richard Cosway’s (1742–1821) celebrated style in the sitter’s enlarged eyes and delicate features, the sky background, and the loose and transparent brushstrokes. Cosway was also particularly attentive to capturing fashionable details. His many followers, including this unknown artist, paid close attention to their sitters’ attire, seen here in the detailed rendering of Buchanan’s bright scarlet coat and green facings.

Buchanan wears the uniform of the 39th Regiment of Foot, and his hair also conforms to military regulations of the time, powdered and short on the sides.¹¹ His coat features gold-fringed epaulettes and green piping outlining the edges of his fully fastened lapels.¹² The lack of visible decoration or insignia makes it impossible to distinguish his rank, but the cut of his coat indicates a date after 1797, which aligns with his move to captain in 1799.¹³

Notes

1. A Nelson-Atkins conservation report from August 5, 1992, mentions a label that identified the sitter. The label was recently found by the present author in a registration file, with an accession number that connects the label to this portrait. Conservators opened the miniature, and although no artist signature was found, the case included three paper backings. Two were printed with the inscription “Mr. MOORE, / GREAT RUSSELL STREET, / COVENT GARDEN,” and a third had the same address but for a “Mrs. MOORE.” The relationship of Mr. and Mrs. Moore to the artist or sitter is unknown at this time.

2. Arnprior is approximately fifty miles northwest of Edinburgh. John Buchanan of Auchlessie and Arnprior “succeeded to Francis Buchanan of Arnprior’s estate of Strathyre, and acquired the properties of Cambusmore, Cambusbeg, Ballachallan, and Culluchat by purchase”; John Guthrie Smith, Strathendrick and its Inhabitants from Early Times: An Account of the Parishes of Fintry, Balfron, Killearn, Drymen, Buchanan, and Kilmarnock (Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons, 1896), 302–3. Murray Kynynmound was the daughter of Patrick Edmonstone of Newton. Variations on the spelling include Edmondstone, Edmoundstone, Edmondstoune, etc.

3. Sir Bernard Burke, “Buchanan of Powis” and “Buchanan-Baillie-Hamilton of Arnprior,” in Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland (London: Harrison and Sons, 1882), 1:216, 718; Sir Bernard Burke, “Buchanan of Powis,” in Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland (London: Harrison and Sons, 1886), 1:242. The life dates of the four daughters are unknown, and they all died unmarried.

4. John Ramsay, Letters of John Ramsay of Ochtertyre, 1799–1812, ed. Barbara Horn, series 4, Scottish History Society (Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, 1966), 3:164n4. James’s year of birth is unknown, but men had to be at least seventeen years old to enlist in the British army, and since Buchanan enlisted in 1796, he was likely born between 1775 and 1779.

5. Per “War-Office,” The London Gazette, no. 13882 (April 9, 1796): 330, “39th Regiment of Foot, / To be Ensigns, / James Buchanan, Gent. vice Murphy.” Burke, “Buchanan of Powis,” 1:242; Richard Cannon, Historical Record of the Thirty-Ninth, or, The Dorsetshire Regiment of Foot (London: Parker, Furnivall, and Parker, 1853), 41; “War-Office,” The London Gazette, no. 13525 (May 4, 1793): 370. The 39th Regiment of Foot was referred to as the 39th (East Middlesex) Regiment of Foot, and later, the 39th (Dorsetshire) Regiment of Foot.

6. Cannon, Historical Record of the Thirty-Ninth, 42; Vere Daly, The Making of Guyana (New York: Macmillan, 1974), 115. The 39th Regiment remained at Demerara until October 1800.

7. “War-Office,” The London Gazette, no. 14084 (January 23, 1798): 61; “War-Office,” The London Gazette, no. 15092 (December 25, 1798): 1236.

8. Anthony Bruce, The Purchase System in the British Army, 1660–1871 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1980), 5; “39th Ditto [Regiment of Foot], Lieutenant James Buchanan, from the 22d Foot, to be Captain, by Purchase, vice Alexander Buchanan, who retires,” according to “War-Office,” The London Gazette, no. 15143 (June 8, 1799): 550; John Williamson, A Treatise of Military Finance (London: T. Egerton, 1796), 40. Individuals who purchased a commission paid the officer who created the vacancy by his retirement. Officers paid the difference between their current rank and the purchased one. In 1796, the commission price of lieutenant was 550 pounds, and captain was 1,500 pounds; therefore, James would have paid his brother 950 pounds for the rank of captain.

9. John Hall, A History of the Peninsular War: The Biographical Dictionary of British Officers Killed and Wounded, 1808–1814 (London: Greenhill Books, 1998), 85; Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903): 2:508–9, 651; “War-Office,” The London Gazette, no. 15230 (February 15, 1800): 139; “War-Office,” The London Gazette, no. 16292 (August 29, 1809): 1367. James died as lieutenant-captain of the 1st Battalion of the 3rd Foot Guards (later called the Scots Guards). The battle occurred outside Talavera de la Reina, Spain, during the Peninsular War (1808–1814). The fighting lasted only two days but killed about eight hundred British army men. The total loss, including those wounded and missing, was 5,363 officers. This was approximately 25 percent of the British force.

10. Ramsay, Letters of John Ramsay of Ochtertyre, 256–57.

11. “The uniform of the regiment was cocked hats bound with white lace; scarlet coats faced and turned up with green”; Cannon, Historical Record of the Thirty-Ninth, 14. See also Bennet Cuthbertson, Cuthbertson’s System, for the Complete Interior Management and Economy of a Battalion of Infantry (Bristol: Rouths and Nelson, 1776), 111; and Scott Hughes Myerly, British Military Spectacle: From the Napoleonic Wars Through the Crimea (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 24. The British army did not abolish hair powder until 1808.

12. N. P. Dawnay, “The Staff Uniform of the British Army, 1767 to 1855,” Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 31, no. 126 (Summer 1953): 73; David Ross, Cataloguing Military Uniforms (Saint John: The New Brunswick Museum, 1977), 6. Two epaulettes were worn by all ranks of a general officer.

13. Thank you to military specialist Andrew Cormack, who in conversation with the author on September 27, 2021, clarified the coat’s post-1797 date.

Probably commissioned by the sitter, James Edmonstone Buchanan (ca. 1777–1809), Scotland, 1799;

Inherited by his brother, Alexander Buchanan of Arnprior (d. 1845), or Thomas Buchanan of Powis (1774–1842), Scotland, by July 28, 1809 [1];

By descent to his son or daughter [2];

Probably Lewis Charles Wallach (1871–1964), The Grange, Northington, Hampshire, by May 2, 1955 [3];

Purchased from his sale, Catalogue of Fine Portrait Miniatures, Sotheby’s, London, May 2, 1955, lot 58, as A Young Officer, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1955–1958 [4];

Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1958.

Notes

[1] The label accompanying the miniature states, “Your Uncle,” implying the miniature was given to Buchanan’s niece or nephew. His brothers, Alexander and Thomas, were his only siblings to have children.

[2] Alexander had one son, Alexander (II), and a daughter, “Miss Edmondstoune.” Thomas had four children: John (he succeeded the Powis estate in 1857 when his cousin, Miss Edmondstoune, died), Ralph Abercromby (d. unmarried 1855), James John Abercromby (d. young), and Alexander (d. without issue 1855). See Sir Bernard Burke, Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland (London: Harrison and Sons, 1882), 216. John Buchanan of Powis, therefore, was the only child of Thomas to have children. Alexander II had a daughter named Catherine Elizabeth Grace Buchanan. She married John Baillie Buchanan-Baillie-Hamilton, or John Baillie Baille-Hamilton, and they had eight children. A Major W.S. Baillie-Hamilton sold miniatures at Sotheby’s on November 30, 1953 and the catalogue is located at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Miller Nichols Library. There are no lots related to this miniature and the connection between these two Baillie-Hamilton families remains unclear.

[3] “The principal owners of The Grange, 1664–present [. . .] Lewis Charles Wallach, born 1871, purchased property 1934, died 1964;” Christopher Currie in “Archaeological Recording at The Grange, Northington, Hampshire” (Hampshire, CKC Archaeology, 2001), 36. “Wallach, Eileen [. . .] The Grange, Northington, Alresford, Hampshire, Wife of Lewis Charles Wallach. 12 September, 1944 [Died],” quoted from “Notices Under the Trustee Act, 1925 S. 27,” The London Gazette, no. 38614 (May 17, 1949): 2457. “The house was owned by Lewis Wallach, who used it to display his collection of antiques and paintings;” Jane Geddes, “The Grange, Northington,” Architectural History 26 (1983): 35.

[4] “A Young Officer, full face, in red uniform with green facings, cloud and sky background, oval, 3in., fitted case.” The annotated catalogue for this sale is located at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Miller Nichols Library. The annotations are most likely by Mr. or Mrs. Starr. The other miniature included in lot 58 is also in the collection, see F58-60/116. “£20” is written in pencil and underlined in pen to the left of the lot. Leggatt bought the miniature for £20. The sitter, James Edmonstone Buchanan, has a family member whose portrait miniature is also located in this sale. Catherine Abercromby (Buchanan’s sister-in-law) had a cousin named John James Edmonstone, who was painted by John Barry, see lot 66. It is possible L.C. Wallach acquired these two miniatures together. Archival research has shown that Leggatt Brothers served as purchasing agents for the Starrs. See correspondence between Betty Hogg and Martha Jane Starr, May 15 and June 3, 1950, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.

Catalogue of Fine Portrait Miniatures (London: Sotheby’s, May 2, 1955), 11, as A Young Officer.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 206, p. 69, (repro.), as Unknown Young Officer.