John Smart, Portrait of Miss Travers, Probably Mary Travers, later Solly, 1803

Chicago:

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “John Smart, Portrait of Miss Travers, Probably Mary Travers, later Solly, 1803,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1624.

MLA:

Marcereau DeGalan, Aimee. “John Smart, Portrait of Miss Travers, Probably Mary Travers, later Solly, 1803,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1624.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

The identity of this charming young woman, previously known only as “Miss Travers,” has been clarified through the initials “MS” on the case verso, which likely correspond to Mary Bridges (or Brydges) Travers Solly (1781–1837). She was the eldest daughter of wealthy London merchant Benjamin Travers, Esq. of Clapton and Mary Bridges Spilsbury.¹ In 1803, Miss Travers married Thomas Solly, Esq. (1779–1832) of St. Mary Axe, at Hackney, London, and this portrait may have been commissioned to mark the occasion.² While she could have sat for any number of miniaturists, the Solly family had close ties to John Smart, as Thomas Solly’s brother, Richard, also sat for a portrait by the artist in 1797.³

Mary Travers Solly was described by her son Benjamin as “fair with blue eyes and exquisitely fine skin,” and with a “perfect temper,”⁴ qualities that this sitter beautifully embodies. She appears here in a white, empire-waisted gown, a fashion reminiscent of the styles worn in ancient Greece and Rome, aligning with the neoclassical aesthetic popular at the time. Her closely cropped auburn hair, styled in the coiffure à la Titus,⁵ further emphasizes the revival of interest in classical antiquity. Smart’s rendering captures the delicate nuances of the sitter’s youthful features: the indentations in her neck, the dimple in her chin, and the subtle shadows that define her cheekbones and eye sockets. These details highlight both her youth and beauty while lending depth and character to the portrait.

Mary and Thomas Solly, who followed his father into the timber trade, went on to have seven children during their thirty-four years of marriage.⁶ They lived for many years at Whips Cross near the Chestnut Walk in Walthamstow before leaving for Blackheath.⁷ Although this miniature ostensibly celebrates the auspicious beginning of married life, the Sollys’ union was not without hardship. Heavy financial losses necessarily curtailed their expenses, leaving little for Mary to survive on following Thomas’s death in 1832.⁸ She passed away a few years later on June 12, 1837, at the age of fifty-six. Regardless of the sitter’s precise identity, this portrait remains a testament to John Smart’s skill in capturing youthful beauty, preserving the elegance and character of its subject for posterity.

Notes

1. I am grateful to curatorial assistant Finn Miller for genealogical research support to help identify this sitter and to Nicholas McNair, great-great-grandson of Nathaniel Neal Solly, and Robert Bruce Elliston, maternal great-great-great-grandson of Mary Solly, for their additional research support. Correspondence in NAMA curatorial files.

2. “Married,” London Sun, November 8, 1803.

3. See John Smart, Richard Solly, 1797, watercolor on ivory, 4 3/4 x 4 3/16 in. (12.1 x 10.6 cm), Victoria and Albert Museum, London, P.109-1929, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1070046/portrait-miniature-of-mr-richard-portrait-miniature-john-smart. Although this portrait is earlier than the Nelson-Atkins portrait, Mary’s brother, Benjamin Travers (1783–1858), had ties to the Honourable East India Company (HEIC) and was working as a surgeon in their warehouse and brigade in India. Although his involvement with the HEIC occurred after Smart’s tenure in India, he could possibly have been made aware of Smart’s work while in India. See D’Arcy Power, “Travers, Benjamin (1783–1858),” rev. May 28, 2015, by Anita McConnell, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/27667. See also “Benjamin Travers, Profile and Legacies Summary,” comp. Julie Weizenegger and William Norton, Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, accessed October 30, 2024, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/773, which corrects part of Travers’s biography as cited above.

4. I am incredibly grateful to Solly family descendants Nathaniel Neal Solly and Robert Bruce Elliston for providing insight and a family manuscript. I also wish to acknowledge Lesley Ann Brooks for facilitating a connection with these two Solly family descendants. The family manuscript was authored by Mary Solly Travers’s son, Benjamin Travers Solly: Benjamin Travers Solly, “Statement by Benjamin Travers Solly,” 1850, unpublished typescript manuscript, provided by Nicholas McNair, great-great-grandson of Nathaniel Neal Solly, and Robert Bruce Elliston, maternal great-great-great-grandson of Mary Solly, September 24, 2024. Correspondence in NAMA curatorial files.

5. Following the French Revolution, short hair became a fashionable statement, originating in the grim practice of cutting the hair of those condemned to the guillotine. Some revolutionaries adopted the style in what Aileen Ribeiro describes as a “chilling mockery of the Terror,” or perhaps, as she suggests, in self-mockery for having succumbed to such horrors. This hairstyle, originally known as coiffure à la victime in solidarity with victims like Charlotte Corday, gained popularity and evolved as it spread to the upper classes. Among the fashionable elite, it became known as the coiffure à la Titus, reflecting the era’s fascination with classical revival fashion. See Aileen Ribeiro, Fashion in the French Revolution (London: B. T. Batsford, 1988), 96–97, 122. See also C. M. P. H., Critique de la Coiffure à la Titus pour les Femme (Paris: Imprimerie de Fain, ca. 1800).

6. Solly, “Statement by Benjamin Travers Solly.”

7. According to Nicholas McNair; see “Thomas Solly (1780–1832),” last modified December 24, 2023, WikiTree, https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Solly-143.

8. Solly, “Statement by Benjamin Travers Solly.”

Charles William Dyson Perrins (1864–1958), Worcestershire, by January 29, 1958 [1];

Purchased from his posthumous sale, Important English and Continental Miniatures and Fine Watches, Sotheby’s, London, December 11, 1958, lot 61, as A Young Girl Called Miss Travers, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1958–1965 [2];

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

Notes

[1] Dyson Perrins died on January 29, 1958. A label on the miniature’s case verso is inscribed, “PERRINS / COLLECTION” with the number 281.

[2] According to the attached price list, Leggatt bought lot 61 for £340. 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.

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

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 136, as Miss Travers.

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 Miss Travers, Probably Mary Travers, later Solly.

Catalogue of Important English and Continental Miniatures and Fine Watches (London: Sotheby’s, December 11, 1958), 17, (repro.), as A Young Girl Called Miss Travers.

Daphne Foskett, John Smart: The Man and His Miniatures (New York: October House, 1964), 75.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 136, p. 48, (repro.), as Miss Travers.