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John Smart, Portrait of a Man, 1795

doi: 10.37764/8322.5.1604

Artist John Smart (English, 1741–1811)
Title Portrait of a Man
Object Date 1795
Medium Watercolor on ivory
Setting Gilt copper alloy case
Dimensions Sight: 2 1/4 x 1 3/4 in. (5.7 x 4.5 cm)
Framed: 2 5/16 x 1 13/16 in. (5.9 x 4.6 cm)
Inscription Inscribed on recto, lower right: “JS / 1795 / I”
Credit Line Gift of the Starr Foundation, Inc., F65-41/36

Citation


Chicago:

Blythe Sobol, “John Smart, Portrait of a Man, 1795,” 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. 4, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2025), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1604.

MLA:

Sobol, Blythe. “John Smart, Portrait of a Man, 1795,” 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. 4, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2025. doi: 10.37764/8322.5.1604.

Artist's Biography


See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

Catalogue Entry


This miniature was painted during Smart’s final year in India. The double-lined “I” inscribed below the date confirms this. Unfortunately, the sitter, a middle-aged man, remains unidentified. He was almost certainly a civil servant working for the , like most British men in Madras (modern-day Chennai). His keen blue-gray eyes provide a striking contrast with his ruddy, windblown skin. His nose and cheeks, in particular, are reddish and mottled in contrast to his paler forehead, which he probably protected from the sun with a broad-brimmed hat.

Deep gray and purple shadows around the sitter’s eyes echo the cool tones of his prominent five o’clock shadow, which is nearly blue beneath his nose and on the sides of his mouth. His powdered wig, too, has motley coloring in shades of gray, pink, and purple, with a deeper brown of his natural hair visible just beneath his ear. Remnants of this hair powder, in shades of gray and apparently purple, are dusted across the high collar and shoulders of his blue jacket with angled frenetic strokes and smaller, layered . Beautiful passages of white and gray and build his voluminous, frilled white from a shapeless blank mass to a sculptural form spilling down his chest. This man’s serious demeanor and worn appearance suggest a life of long days and late nights devoted to serving the British empire.

Blythe Sobol
September 2024

Provenance


Possibly with I. Rosenbaum, Frankfurt, Germany, by December 14, 1910;

Possibly purchased from I. Rosenbaum by Henry (1840–1928) and Emma (née Lazarus, 1852–1937) Budge, Hamburg, Germany, December 14, 1910–1937 [1];

Purchased at Emma’s posthumous sale, Die Sammlung Frau Emma Budge Hamburg, Paul Graupe, Berlin, lot 342, October 4–6, 1937, by Erich Schall, Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Germany, 1937 [2];

Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO;

Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1965.

Notes

[1] A book listing Henry Budge’s purchases from the Frankfurt dealer I. Rosenbaum contains the following entry on page 36: “1 Miniatur von J. Smart 1792. Alter Herr.” Although not definitive, this may be the Nelson-Atkins object. Although the miniature is now dated 1795, it was catalogued in the 1937 Budge auction with the date 1792. Frick Art Reference Library, New York, MS 065 Rosenberg & Stiebel Archive, “Ankäufe des Herrn Henry Budge Hamburg.” Copies in Nelson-Atkins curatorial file. With thanks to MacKenzie Mallon, Provenance Specialist, for her diligence and support in compiling this provenance narrative.

[2] The Graupe sale was originally scheduled for September 27–29, 1937, but was postponed to October 4–6, 1937. The price estimate for this miniature was 600 RM; the final sale was for 710 RM. Schall’s name appears in an annotated copy of the catalogue held by the National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He also purchased lot 341. Schall was the manager of the Freie Succession artists’ group (founded by Max Liebermann) in Berlin from 1913–1918.

Exhibitions


John Smart—Miniaturist: 1741/2–1811, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, December 9, 1965–January 2, 1966, no cat., as Gentleman.

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 128, as Unknown Man.

John Smart: Virtuoso in Miniature, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, December 21, 2024–January 4, 2026, no cat., as Portrait of a Man.

References


Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 128, p. 45, (repro.), as Unknown Man.

No known related works at this time. If you have additional information on this object, please tell us more.

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