Philip Jean, Portrait of Master Tyers, Probably George Rogers Barrett, 1787

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “Philip Jean, Portrait of Master Tyers, Probably George Rogers Barrett, 1787,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1440.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “Philip Jean, Portrait of Master Tyers, Probably George Rogers Barrett, 1787,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1440.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

This portrait and its pair (Fig. 1, F58-60/84), both dated 1787, have traditionally been identified as Master Tyers and Miss Tyers. Philip Jean painted at least eleven members of the Tyers family between 1787 and 1788.¹ The Tyerses were famous for their proprietorship of Vauxhall Gardens, the most popular London attraction for nearly two centuries (Fig. 2).² As one historian described it:

No space in Georgian London has come to represent the cultural aspirations of an emergent professional class more thoroughly than Jonathan Tyer’s structurally renovated and morally reformed pleasure garden. . . . Vauxhall Gardens turned bourgeois sociability into a performance art.³

In 1729, the Gardens were sublet to the twenty-seven-year-old entrepreneur Jonathan Tyers (1702–1767), who hosted many events in his early years of the lease, including the very successful masquerade ball, the Ridotto al Fresco, attended by royalty.⁴ The Gardens quickly flourished as a public gallery of British art,⁵ architecture, lighting, and music that hosted millions of paying visitors between 1740 and 1840.⁶

The family celebrated the Vauxhall Gardens’ Jubilee, or fiftieth anniversary, in 1786, a year before these portraits were painted.⁷ In Jean’s portraits, the girl appears to be between six and eight years old, and the boy between five and seven. The only members of the Tyers family who were this young in 1787 were Jonathan Tyers’s great-grandchildren. Jonathan’s grandchild Elizabeth Tyers (1759–1834)⁸ and her husband, Bryant Barrett (1743–1809), had three children together: Eliza (1780–1838), George Rogers (1781–1860), and Jonathan Tyers Barrett (1784–1851). Seven-year-old Eliza and six-year-old George Rogers match the ages of Master and Miss Tyers, further solidifying their identities.⁹

Bryant Barrett eventually took over ownership of Vauxhall Gardens after his father-in-law died in 1792.¹⁰ His daughter, Eliza, later married his former business partner, Boughey Burgess (1775–1846), in 1802.¹¹ Jean paints the young Eliza awash with white: fair-skinned and wearing a white gown and cap, set against a light background. Her black curls add a stark contrast and frame her face, while her large, round eyes offer an equal contrast to her dark hair. A stroke of orange indicates the curve of her left eyebrow; a similar technique can be found in the miniature of her brother.

Elizabeth and Bryant Barrett baptized their son George Rogers on March 5, 1781. George married Anna Maria Seymour on April 15, 1820, in France and did not have any children.¹² Little else is known about George, except that he died in 1860 in Boulogne.¹³ In Jean’s portrait, George’s bright red hair, with glowing flaxen roots, is parted down the middle, rather than the side-swept fringe his sister displays. His expression is mischievous, with his cocked brow and a slight smirk. He wears Van Dyck dress, so-called after Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599–1641) court painter to the Stuart kings. It was a popular style of dress for eighteenth-century masquerades and fitting attire for a family renowned for hosting this type of ball at the Gardens.¹⁴ The collar’s triangular trim has a fascinating painted pattern; Jean creates a scattering of white dots and dashes, with checkerboards of squares in between.

Upon Bryant Barrett’s death, the care and management of Vauxhall Gardens was divided between his and Eliza’s sons, George and Jonathan. Jonathan became the sole owner in 1818, but he sold the Gardens to Thomas Bish and Frederick Gye in 1825 for thirty thousand pounds, or almost 3 million pounds today.¹⁵ The Tyers family inheritance, including these portrait miniatures, went to Jonathan’s only child, Margaret Tyers Barrett (1810–1899), when he died in 1851.¹⁶ While no part of Vauxhall Gardens remains today, these portraits help illustrate the legacy of one of the most successful families of Georgian England.

Notes

1. See Catalogue of Objects of Vertu, Etc., Sotheby’s, March 5, 1925, lots 129–38. An undated oil painting by Jean of Elizabeth Barrett (née Tyers) recently sold at auction; see Philip Jean, Portrait of Mrs. Bryan Barrett (1759–1834), n.d., oil on canvas, 49 7/8 x 40 1/4 in. (126.7 x 102 cm), sold at Sotheby’s “Old Master Paintings,” April 6, 2022, lot 165, https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2022/old-master-paintings/portrait-of-mrs-bryan-barrett-1759-1834-three.

2. David Coke and Alan Borg, Vauxhall Gardens: A History (London: Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre, 2011). See the online version of the book for additional information, including a helpful family tree: http://vauxhallgardens.com.

3. Douglas Fordham, British Art and the Seven Years’ War: Allegiance and Autonomy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010), 119.

4. Coke and Borg, Vauxhall Gardens, 44–45. The Ridotto al Fresco was a masquerade ball reminiscent of the Italian carnival. Entrance to the event cost one guinea, an expensive sum at the time, and between three and four hundred people attended. Prince Frederick, along with his notable entourage, attended the Ridotto.

5. Coke and Borg, Vauxhall Gardens, 85. Tyers commissioned works of art for the Gardens, including paintings from William Hogarth (English, 1697–1764) and Francis Hayman (English, 1708–1776) and a sculpture from Louis-François Roubiliac (French, 1702–1762).

6. “Vauxhall welcomed around ten million paying visitors, and came to be a focus for national and patriotic celebrations”; Coke and Borg, Vauxhall Gardens, 2. For further reading on the Gardens and their societal effects, see David H. Solkin, Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century England (London: Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre, 1993), 106–56; and Peter de Bolla, The Education of the Eye: Painting, Landscape, and Architecture in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 72–103.

7. Coke and Borg, Vauxhall Gardens, 35, 241. The family had sought out portrait miniatures well before 1787; Samuel Cotes painted Jonathan and Elizabeth Tyers in 1757. The portraits are illustrated in Vauxhall Gardens; their present whereabouts are unknown, but they were formerly at Brandon House, Suffolk. Philip Jean also painted a portrait of Paul Sandby in 1787. The sale of Jonathan Tyers Junior’s estate at Christie’s in 1830 included two works by Sandby, suggesting a mutual connection between Jean, Sandby, and the Tyerses; see A Catalogue of a Valuable and Highly Interesting Assemblage of Pictures, the property of Jonathan Tyers, Christie’s, London, April 28, 1830; and Philip Jean, Paul Sandby, 1787, watercolor on ivory, 4 1/4 x 3 3/8 in. (10.8 x 8.6 cm), Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 422520. A 1759 letter from the architect Robert Adam to his brother James outlines a request from Tyers for a temple in Vauxhall Gardens: “However if I can satisfy myself and Paul Sandby and the proprietor [Tyers], who has genius and fancy, I doubt not but it will please all”; quoted in Sheila O’Connell, “Vauxhall Gardens,” London 1753 (Boston: David R. Godine, 2003), 237.

8. Jonathan Tyers had four children: Margaret, Thomas, Elizabeth, and Jonathan Tyers Junior. Thomas never married, so the Gardens passed to Jonathan, who married Margaret Dawson and had one child, Elizabeth.

9. An October 10, 2003, letter from author David E. Coke to Dena Woodall at the Nelson-Atkins aided this conclusion; Nelson-Atkins curatorial files. There is a miniature by Jean at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), depicting a young child holding a dog: Philip Jean, Unknown Child, 1787, watercolor on ivory, Victoria and Albert Museum, P.95-1910, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1069523/portrait-miniature-of-an-unknown-miniature-philip-jean/. It is dated 1787 and signed in the same way as the Nelson-Atkins portrait of George Rogers Barrett, along the left edge of the ivory support. Although the provenance remains unknown, it is possible that the V&A portrait depicts the third and youngest child, Jonathan Tyers Barrett.

10. Coke and Borg, Vauxhall Gardens, 240, 256. Bryant Barrett and Elizabeth Tyers married on May 27, 1779. Elizabeth was the only child, so responsibility passed onto the Barrett family.

11. “Eliza Barrett marriage license,” St. Mary’s, Lambeth, Surrey, England, London Metropolitan Archives, FHL film no. 254603, ref. P85/MRY1/347, digitized on ancestrylibrary.com; “The Partnership late subsisting between Bryant Barrett and Boughey Burgess, of Stockwell, Surrey, was by mutual Consent this Day dissolved,” The London Gazette, September 29, 1800; “Insured: Bryant Barrett, esq, wax bleacher, and Boughey Burgess Other . . . 17 September 1974,” London Metropolitan Archives, ref. MS 11936/399/632474, digitized on ancestrylibrary.com. Both were in the business of wax bleaching. Eliza and Boughey had two children: Emma (b. 1807) and Elizabeth (b. 1813). Both were mentioned in the will of their uncle Jonathan Tyers Barrett.

12. General Register Office: Foreign Registers and Returns, class RG 33, piece 63, National Archives, Kew.

13. General Register Office: Foreign Registers and Returns; class RG 33, piece 47, National Archives, Kew.

14. See Aileen Ribeiro, The Dress Worn at Masquerades in England, 1730 to 1790, and its Relation to Fancy Dress in Portraiture (New York: Garland, 1984), 7–8.

15. Coke and Borg, Vauxhall Gardens, 257. Bish and Gye leased the Gardens from 1821 until their purchase in 1825. According to Coke and Borg, “Bryant Barrett was never very keen on operating the gardens; towards the end of his life he appears to have been intent on running them down and selling, so that he could retire on the profit.”

16. “Will of Reverend Jonathan Tyers Barrett, Doctor in Divinity of Attleburgh, Norfolk, 24 April 1851,” National Archives, Kew, ref. 11/2130/147; Coke and Borg, Vauxhall Gardens, 256. Jonathan had another child, Georgina (1812–1815), but she died young. Jonathan became the sole owner of the Gardens in 1818.

Probably commissioned by the sitter’s parents, Bryant Barrett (1743–1809) and Elizabeth Tyers (1759–1834), London, England, 1787 [1];

Elizabeth Tyers Barrett (1758–1834), Stockwell, Surrey, by 1809 [2];

Given to her granddaughter, Margaret Tyers Barrett (1810–1899), Attleborough, Norfolk, England, 1834 [3];

By descent to her nephew, Lieutenant Colonel Boyd Cullen Poley Hamilton (1847–1923), Brandon House, England, by 1899–1919 [4];

His sale, Brandon House, Lacy Scott and Sons, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, England, September 4–6, 1919 [5];

Unknown woman, by March 5, 1925 [6];

Purchased from her sale, Catalogue of Objects of Vertu, Etc., Sotheby’s, London, March 5, 1925, lot 135, as A Girl, by Webster, 1925 [7];

Alfred Hill, by May 13, 1942;

Purchased from his posthumous sale, Catalogue of Valuable Jewels, Miniatures, Objects of Vertu, Silhouettes, Etc., Sotheby’s, London, May 13, 1942, lot 65, as A Pair of Miniatures of Children, by Col. Body, 1942 [8];

Unknown owner, by November 9, 1944;

Purchased from the unknown owner’s sale, Catalogue of Valuable Miniatures, Watches, Objects of Vertu, Asiatic and European Ivories, Old English Glass, Etc., Sotheby’s, London, November 9, 1944, lot 125, as A Pair of Miniatures of Children, by Reynolds, 1944 [9];

Elsie Gertrude Kehoe (1888–1967), Cliffe Dene, Saltdean, Sussex, England, by June 15, 1950;

Purchased from her sale, Objects of Vertu, Fine Watches, Etc., Including The Property of Mrs. W. D. Dickson; also Fine Portrait Miniatures Comprising The Property of Mrs. Kehoe, Sotheby’s, London, June 15, 1950, lot 158, as Master and Miss Tyers, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1950–1958 [10];

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

Notes

[1] Elizabeth Tyers was the grandchild of Jonathan Tyers (1702–1767) and Elizabeth Fermor (1700–1802), proprietors of New Spring Gardens, later Vauxhall Gardens. The Tyers commissioned Samuel Cotes to paint portraits of the whole family. Cotes’s portraits of Jonathan and Elizabeth sold at Sotheby’s on December 13, 1945. See Cotes’s biography in volume 4 of this catalogue.

[2] Bryant and Elizabeth had three children: George Rogers Barrett (1781–1860), Jonathan Tyers Barrett (1784–1851), and Eliza Barrett (1780–1838). In Bryant Barrett’s will, he bequeaths “all my plat [sic] China Glass Books pictures paintings drawings [etc.]” to his wife, Elizabeth. And “after the decease of my said wife or her marrying again (which shall first happen) I give and bequeath all the aforesaid palte [sic] and other personal [illeg.] so bequeathed as last aforesaid to my two sons George Rogers Barrett and Jonathan Tyers Barrett to be equally divided amongst them but with Liberty to the said George Rogers Barrett to take all and every the said Plate China Glass Books Pictures Paintings Drawings . . . at a fair appraisement.” His will was proved on March 16, 1809, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey, England, Records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, series 11, class 11, piece 1494.

The Barretts’s son George married Anna Maria Seymour and did not have children. The Barretts’s son Jonathan married Mary Slade and had two daughters, Margaret Tyers (1810–1899) and Georgina Barrett (1812–1815). The Barretts’s daughter Eliza married Boughey Burgess and had two daughters, Emma (b. 1807) and Elizabeth (b. 1813).

[3] According to Elizabeth’s will, “I leave and bequeath into my Grandaughter [sic] Margaret Tyers Barrett the whole of my Jewels and Trinkets under the hope that she will be a dutiful and obedient daughter if otherwise they are to be at the disposal of her father the Revd. Jonathan Tyers Barrett [illeg.] and I leave the Remainder of my money and household furniture and effects of what kindsoever unto my son the Revd. Jonathan Tyers Barrett revoking all other wills and testaments.” Dated September 3, 1825.

In a codicil to her will, Elizabeth writes: “Having arrived at advanced age and not requiring Jewelry Trinkets I state for the information of my Executors that I have this day freely given to my Grandaughter [sic] Margaret Tyers Barrett all my Jewels and Trinkets to hold and possess the same in her own right as a free and lawful gift from myself.” Will proved on August 21, 1834, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey, England, Records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, series 11, Class 11, piece 1835.

Margaret Tyers Barrett married Rev. William Weller Poley (1814–1887) on October 13, 1846. They had a daughter, Mary Elizabeth Weller Poley (1847–1888).

[4] William Weller Poley’s sister, Charlotte Helen, married Capt. Peter William Hamilton of the Royal Navy (d. 1863) in Boulogne-Sur-Mer, France, on September 14, 1843. Their children were Helen Frances Desquartiers (1844–after 1915), John William Fisher Hamilton (ca. 1849–1936), and Colonel Boyd Cullen Poley Hamilton (1847–1923).

According to National Probate Calendar, “Margaret Tyers of Brandon-house Brandon Suffolk widow died 4 December 1899 at Great Yarmouth Probate London 7 April to Boyd Cullen Poley Hamilton retired lieutenant-colonel in H.M. army and John William Fisher Hamilton esquire. Effects £52330 14s. 5d.”

According to 1911 Brandon, Norfolk, England census, Boyd Cullen was married to Janie Grathan (b. ca. 1871) of Ireland. They had been married for “under one year.” Boyd is listed as having been born in Boulogne-Sur-Mer, France, but being of British nationality. In the 1911 Suffolk, Long Melford, census, John William Fisher Hamilton is listed as married to Janet Pitcairn (b. 1873) for 15 years. John’s place of birth is Boulogne- Sur-Mer, France, and nationality is British subject. Neither census lists any children.

[5] This provenance aligns with the provenance of a pair of pistols sold at Bonhams, Antique Arms and Armour, November 30, 2011, lot 555. According to a handwritten note by the late owner, the pistols were “Sold by Nock to Rev. Jonathon Tyers-Barrett, chaplain of Prince Regent. Left to his daughter Margaret Weller-Poley then to her nephew Lt./Col. Boyd Cullen Poley-Hamilton (related to 3rd Duke of Hamilton). Sold with contents of Brandon House by auctioneers Lacy Scott of Bury St. Edmunds 1909.”

Also in the Property of Col. B.C.P. Hamilton were portraits of his mother, Charlotte Helen Hamilton, by the watercolorist Negelon, and of his aunt, Margaret Tyers Weller Poley, in chalk. See Edmund Farrer, Portraits in Suffolk Houses (West) (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1908), 42.

However, there does not appear to be a catalogue for this sale. In a 2003 letter from Vauxhall scholar David Coke, “One thing I would very much like to trace is a copy of the catalogue of the Brandon House sale”; see Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.

[6] In the Sotheby’s March 5, 1925, sale, “The Property of a Lady” sold lots 129–160. According to the sales catalogue, “The first ten lots, all of members of the Tyers family, were painted by Paul Jean, in 1787–8, and show a quality of work that places the artist amongst the foremost miniaturists of this period.”

[7] “A Girl, head and shoulders, three-quarters to right, with black curls, in mob cap and white muslin dress, signed ‘P. Jean, 1787,’ oval, 1 5/8 in., in gold brooch frame.” Sold below the accompanying portrait of Master Tyers, F58-60/83, lot 134, as A Boy. In the annotated catalogue, the number “11” is written in pen to the right of the lot. Webster bought lots 129–138. According to Basil Long, British Miniaturists (London: Holland Press, 1966), 240: “Eleven miniatures by Jean of members of the Tyers family were sold at Sotheby’s, 5.3.1925, lots 129-138; most were dated 1787 or 1788.” A Percy Webster was a dealer of ancient clocks, diamonds, plates, and antiques. See an advertisement in “Front Matter,” Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 1 no. 2 (April 1903).

[8] According to Art Prices Current, vol. 20 (1941–1942), “Col. Body” purchased lot 65 for £16.

[9] “A Pair of Miniatures of Children by Philip Jean, signed in full and dated 1787, the girl with black hair, white cap and white dress, the boy with curly auburn hair falling to the shoulders, in dark tunic with spiked lace collar, oval, 1 5/8in.; in slide frames.” See Frontispiece. “The children are members of the Tyers family and like the other examples by Philip Jean, are noted by Basil long in British Miniatures, p. 240.” Reynolds bought lot 125 for £32.

[10] “Master and Miss Tyers, by Philip Jean, signed and dated 1797, the boy with dark golden hair, in a blue coat with lace collar, the girl in white frilled cap over dark hair, in low-cut white bodice, oval, 1 5/8in. From the large Collection of Miniatures of the members of the Tyers family, sold in these Rooms March, 1935, and mentioned by Basil Long, p. 240; and sold again on 9th November, 1944, lot 125.” Leggatt bought lot 158 for £28. 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, NAMA curatorial files.

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. 287, (repro.), as Miss Tyers.

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 182, as Miss Tyers.

Catalogue of Objects of Vertu, Fine Watches, Etc., Including The Property of Mrs. W. D. Dickson; also Fine Portrait Miniatures Comprising The Property of Mrs. Kehoe (London: Sotheby’s, June 15, 1950), 21, as Master and Miss Tyers.

Martha Jane and John W. Starr, “Collecting Portrait Miniatures,” Antiques 80, no. 5 (November 1961): 438–39, (repro.), as Miss Tyers.

Basil Long, British Miniaturists (London: Holland Press, 1966), 240.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 182, p. 62, (repro.), as Miss Tyers.

Daphne Foskett, A Dictionary of British Miniature Painters (New York: Praeger, 1972), no. 475, pl. 187, (repro.), as Miss Tyers.

Graham Reynolds, English Portrait Miniatures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 155, no. 103, (repro.), as Miss Tyers.