John Smart, Portrait of Hugh Innes, later 1st Baronet Innes, 1799

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “John Smart, Portrait of Hugh Innes, later 1st Baronet Innes, 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. 4, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2025), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1612.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “John Smart, Portrait of Hugh Innes, later 1st Baronet Innes, 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. 4, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2025. doi: 10.37764/8322.5.1612.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

While many portrait miniatures were commissioned as gifts for loved ones, the purpose of this portrait remains uncertain. The sitter, Scottish-born Hugh Innes (1763/64–1831), was orphaned by the time his portrait was painted, and he never married.¹ Innes presents himself modestly in a simple blue coat paired with a pale-yellow vest that coordinates with two shiny gold buttons. His fair complexion has a subtle flush—its true color only visible in his white forehead, which would have been regularly protected by a top hat. Powdered white sideburns creep toward expressionless features; Innes emerges from the painting a young, but serious businessman.

However modest his appearance may seem, two years after he sat for this portrait Innes bought the Scottish estate of Lochalsh for thirty-eight thousand pounds, or 3.5 million dollars today.² It remains unclear how Innes, the son of a clergyman, acquired his wealth.³ For a man of means who recently purchased such a large estate, it is also surprising that the only known portrait of Innes is the present three-inch-tall portrait and its preparatory counterpart (Fig. 1), rather than any large-scale oil portrait. John Smart’s preparatory work, signed and dated 1799, remained in his studio until his descendants’ 1936 sale.⁴ In the drawing, Innes’s eyes appear bluer, his hair shorter, and his skin paler, and Smart renders more of his coat than in the composition on ivory.

Smart must have been pleased with Innes’s finished portrait because he exhibited it at the Royal Academy a year after its completion.⁵ The portrait’s case was probably made in India, with loops at the top and bottom to string ribbon through. At the back, a braided hair belt surrounds opalescent glass and the sitter’s “HI” monogram in gold.⁶ Innes was an active Member of Parliament, representing the counties of Ross-shire (1809–1812), Tain Burghs (1812–1830), and Sutherland (1831).⁷ He may have known fellow Scotsman Keith MacAlister, whom Smart painted in 1810, from neighboring Skye. Both were also members of the Highland Society of London.⁸

Innes’s baronetcy was created in 1818: he would be the first and last Baronet Innes.⁹ A carriage accident in 1820 risked his life and newfound title when a wheel caught a stone and somersaulted the carriage over a sloping bank, killing his butler.¹⁰ Innes was “severely hurt” but survived the incident.¹¹ He lived eleven more years, dying on August 16, 1831, and his title expired with him.¹² With no descendants and no known will, Innes’s documentary portrait disappeared in Scotland only to resurface 120 years later in a London antique dealer’s advertisement before finding its way to Kansas City.¹³

Notes

1. His father was the Reverend Hugh Innes (1727–1765), and his mother was Jean Graham (1730–1774). John Burke, “Innes, of Lochalsh,” A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England (London: Scott, Webster, and Geary, 1838), 278. He may have had a sister, Catherine (also spelled Katherine or Kathrine) Innes, who married James Lindsay of Glasgow. “Innes of Inchstellie: Descended from Innes of Coxton,” Aberdeen and North-East Scotland Family History Society, p. 1, accessed July 2, 2024, https://www.anesfhs.org.uk/images/downloads/innes/pdfs/a_21_innes_of_inchstellie.pdf.

2. He bought the property from Lord Seaforth; Finlay McKichan, “Lord Seaforth and Highland Estate Management in the First Phase of Clearance (1783–1815),” Scottish Historical Review 86, no. 221 (April 2007): 62. Conversion calculated on “Pounds Sterling to Dollars: Historical Conversion of Currency,” accessed July 3, 2024, https://www.uwyo.edu/numimage/currency.htm.

3. Innes attended Glasgow University in 1777 and is described as “the fifth eldest son of the late Reverend Sir Hugo.” “Matriculated Students,” The Matriculation Albums of the University of Glasgow, ed. W. Innes Addison (Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons, 1913), no. 3745. Translated from Latin by the author.

4. Sketches and Studies for Miniature Portraits by John Smart, the Property of Mrs. Busteed Great-Granddaughter of the Artist, Christie’s, London, December 17, 1936, lot 37, now in a private collection.

5. He exhibited the portrait alongside portraits of C. Berrey, Miss Streat, Miss L. Lambert, and Miss E. Lambert; The Exhibition of the Royal Academy 32 (London: B. McMillan, 1800), 34.

6. Terry Jenkins, “Innes, Sir Hugh, 1st bt. (?1764–1831), of Balmacara House, Lochalsh, Ross and Regent Street, Mdx.” The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1820–1832, ed. D. R. Fisher, online edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/innes-sir-hugh-1764-1831. Innes may have also enlisted as a Major of the Western Regiment of Ross-shire Local Militia. See “Commissions signed by the Lord Lieutenant of Ross-shire: [illeg.] or Western Regiment of Rossshire Local Militia,” London Gazette, April 20, 1809, 715.

7. For a similar case with hair reserve and monogram, see Smart’s Portrait of David Reid, 1802.

8. See both of their names listed in The Statutes of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland 6 (London: George Eyre and Andrew Strahan, 1816), 1091.

9. His baronetcy was created on October 20, 1818. John Debrett, “INNES,” The Baronetage of England 2 (London: J. Moyes, 1819), 1330.

10. “Glasgow, March 31,” Glasgow Herald, March 31, 1820, 4.

11. Jenkins, “Innes, Sir Hugh.”

12. Jenkins, “Innes, Sir Hugh.”

13. “Miniature of Sir Hugh Innes. Signed and dated, John Smart, 1799,” Frank Partridge and Sons, fine arts dealer, advertisement in The Connoisseur 126, no. 519 (January 1951): unpaginated.

With Frank Partridge and Sons, London, by January 1951 [1];

Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 1965;

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

Notes

[1] “Miniature of Sir Hugh Innes. Signed and dated, John Smart, 1799,” according to an advertisement in The Connoisseur (January 1951): unpaginated.

John Smart, Hugh Innes, 1799, watercolor and pencil on paper, 4 5/16 in. (11 cm) high, private collection.

The Exhibition of the Royal Academy, The Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1800, no. 899, as H. Innes.

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

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 132, as Hugh Innes.

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 Hugh Innes, later 1st Baronet Innes.

The Exhibition of the Royal Academy, exh. cat., 32 (London: B. McMillan, 1800), 34.

advertisement, The Connoisseur (January 1951): unpaginated, (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 132, p. 46, (repro.), as Hugh Innes.