Richard Cosway, Portrait of Lieutenant Robert Bertie, 4th Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven, ca. 1779

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “Richard Cosway, Portrait of Lieutenant Robert Bertie, 4th Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven, ca. 1779,” 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. 2, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1321.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “Richard Cosway, Portrait of Lieutenant Robert Bertie, 4th Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven, ca. 1779,” 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. 2, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024. doi: 10.37764/8322.5.1321.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

Described as “a young nobleman of extraordinary eccentricity of character, and capable of undertaking any enterprise, however desperate or dangerous,” Robert Bertie (1756–1779) is depicted here as a dashing military officer. Bertie was born on October 17, 1756, to General Peregrine Bertie (1714–1778), 3rd Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven, and Mary Panton at the family estate, Grimsthorpe Castle, in Lincolnshire.¹ After studying at St. John’s College, Cambridge, Bertie embraced his daring nature, following in his high-ranking father’s footsteps by enlisting in the British Army.² Purchasing the rank of lieutenant of the 17th Regiment of Foot on May 9, 1776, Robert Bertie accompanied the regiment to fight in the American Revolution around 1777.³

Although Richard Cosway painted Bertie in his 17th Regiment uniform, which dates to his 1776 military commission, the work is instead likely a version created after Bertie’s death.⁴ He is dressed in the regiment’s red coat with grayish-white facings and a zigzag lace epaulette on his shoulder.⁵ Cosway painted at least four other versions of this miniature, two of which depict Bertie in the same uniform.⁶ The Nelson-Atkins work represents him with a ghostly pallor, in contrast to his vivid coat, supporting the hypothesis that it was probably painted after Bertie’s death in 1779. A glimmer of peachy pigment spreads across his cheekbones, and a striking pair of blue eyes stare back. He was known for his many romances, including an extramarital relationship with widower Rebecca Krudener, with whom he fathered a child.⁷

Following his father’s death on August 12, 1778, Bertie inherited the title of Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven.⁸ He did not, however, hold the designation long. He died less than a year later, of scarlet fever and/or a combination of typhus and excessive drinking, at the age of twenty-two.⁹ Queen Charlotte described the event: “It is to be lamented, that this Young Man with fine Intents, a good Heart, the Advantage of Rank, did choose to lead so idle a life, so too ruin his Health by giving himself up to Drinking.”¹⁰ At the time of his death, Bertie was engaged to Lady Anne Horatia Waldegrave (1762–1801), great-niece of antiquarian and miniature collector Horace Walpole.¹¹ The present portrait may have descended through the Waldegrave family, eventually ending up in the collection of John W. and Martha Jane Starr.¹²

Notes

1. Allan Chilvers, The Berties of Grimsthorpe (Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2010), 213; “Peregrine (Bertie), Duke of Ancaster,” The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, ed. Vicary Gibbs (London: St. Catherine Press, 1910), 1:128. Peregrine Bertie gained the most senior rank of General in 1772, after holding the office of Master of the Horse from 1766 to 1778. Grimsthorpe Castle still stands; for more information, see its website at https://www.grimsthorpe.co.uk.

2. “Robert (Bertie), Marquess of Lindsey,” A Cambridge Alumni Database, University of Cambridge, accessed August 23, 2023, https://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search-2018.pl?sur=Lindsey&suro=c&fir=&firo=c&cit=&cito=c&c=all&z=all&tex=&sye=1772&eye=1772&col=all&maxcount=50.

3. After the Battle of Princeton on January 3, 1777, the 17th Regiment of Foot marched with the rest of the British Army to New York in the spring of 1777. For more information, see “The Philadelphia Campaign,” HM 17th Regiment of Infantry with Followers and Civilians, accessed August 23, 2023, https://www.17thregiment.com/the-philadelphia-campaign.

4. Robert was commissioned Captain of the 15th Regiment of Foot on January 20, 1778, and returned to New York on August 5 after visiting his ill father in England. According to Rivington’s Royal Gazette of August 13, 1779 (cited in Chilvers, The Berties of Grimsthorpe, 215), Bertie traveled alongside fellow passenger the Hon. Charles Stewart. The 15th Regiment had red coats and yellow facings, so the version of this portrait that was painted from life dates to before his 1778 promotion, when Bertie wore a red coat with white facings. C. E. Franklin, British Army Uniforms from 1751 to 1783 (Barnsley: Pen and Sword Books, 2012), unpaginated, chapter 20.

5. See Franklin, British Army Uniforms, chapter 20, and its image guide of the 17th Regiment of Foot uniform.

6. One version depicts Robert in a red coat and white collar and is navette, or marquise, shaped. It was previously in the collection of the Hon. Willoughby Burrell, sold at the sale of Robert Rockliff’s collection at Sotheby’s, London, November 11, 1947, and sold again at a private New York collector’s sale at Parke-Bernet’s, New York, January 31, 1959. A second version, dated ca. 1780, is in a private collection and is illustrated in Julie Aronson and Marjorie Weiseman, Perfect Likeness: European and American Portrait Miniatures from the Cincinnati Art Museum (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 25. A third, dated ca. 1778–79, depicts Bertie in a fur-trimmed coat and is illustrated in Stephen Lloyd, Richard Cosway (London: Unicorn Press, 2005), 44. A fourth version that sold at Christie’s, London, February 21, 1949, depicts Robert in a red coat and blue collar.

7. Sometimes spelled Krüdener. Their daughter, Susan, later married Banastre Tarleton (1754–1833), and Bertie left a considerable amount to Susan in his will; Chilvers, Berties of Grimsthorpe, 139; “Will of The Most Noble Robert Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven Lord Great Chamberlain of England or Lord Hereditary Great Chamberlain of England,” July 23, 1779, PROB 11/1054/319, National Archives, Kew. See also his portrait “The Favourite of the Fair” beside a portrait of a lady entitled “The Captivating Lais,” which were featured in Town and Country magazine, 1779, stipple engraving, 4 1/4 x 6 7/8 in. (10.8 x 17.5 cm), British Museum, London, 1873,1108.316, https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1873-1108-316.

8. Chilvers, Berties of Grimsthorpe, 215. Robert returned to England in early 1778 to visit his ill father before his death.

9. Chilvers, Berties of Grimsthorpe, 215. He died on July 8, 1779. In Horace Walpole’s letters, he reports: “The Duke of Ancaster is dead of a scarlet fever contracted by drinking and rioting.” The Letters of Horace Walpole, Fourth Earl of Orford, ed. Paget Toynbee (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1904), 442. Another source writes on July 10, 1779: “The young Duke died of a Putrid Fever, occasioned by drinking Brandy and Champagne to a violent degree”; Louisa Susannah Wells, The Journal of a Voyage from Charleston, S.C., to London (New York: New York Historical Society, 1906), 42.

10. According to Catherine Curzon, The Elder Sons of George III: Kings, Princes, and A Grand Old Duke (Yorkshire: Pen and Sword History, 2020), 107.

11. Lady Horatia was Horatio Walpole’s great niece and the daughter of Maria Walpole, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh (1736–1807). Lady Horatia married Lord Hugh Seymour in 1785; A. W. H. Pearsall, “Seymour [formerly Seymour Conway], Lord Hugh,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, September 23, 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/25175.

12. According to George Charles Williamson, Richard Cosway, R.A. (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1905): “A lovely one [miniature] of Robert, the fourth Duke, belongs to the Hon. Willoughby Burrell, and a replica of it belongs to his father, Lord Gwydyr. Still another belongs to Earl Waldegrave, and was evidently done for the Duke that he might present it to Lady Horatia Walpole, to whom he was engaged” (115). The portrait owned by Willoughby sold at Sotheby’s, London, on November 11, 1947. The same portrait appeared again at a sale at Parke-Bernet, New York, January 31, 1959. The Nelson-Atkins version may have belonged to Sir Peter Burrell, 1st Baron Gwydyr or “Lord Gwydyr” (1754–1820), who married Bertie’s sister, Priscilla. It could have also belonged to Earl Waldegrave by descent from his mother and Bertie’s fiancée, Lady Anne Horatia Waldegrave.

Possibly the Waldegrave or Burrell families, by 1779 [1];

Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 1958;

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

NOTES

[1] According to George Charles Williamson, Richard Cosway, R.A. (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1905), 115, “In addition to the portrait on this [Ancaster] box a lovely one of Robert, the fourth Duke, belongs to the Hon. Willoughby Burrell, and a replica of it to his father, Lord Gwydyr. Still another belongs to Earl Waldegrave, and was evidently done for the Duke that he might present it to Lady Horatia Walpole, to whom he was engaged. The Duke died unmarried, and this miniature was lost sight of for some years, and its owners did not know whom it represented.” Robert Bertie (1756–1779) was engaged to Lady Anne Horatia Seymour (née Waldegrave, 1762–1801) at the time of his death in 1779. By 1905, a portrait of Bertie by Cosway was owned by Lady Anne’s great grandnephew, William Frederick Waldegrave, 9th Earl Waldegrave (1851–1930), so the portrait may have passed through her hands. Other versions of this portrait were given to Bertie’s sister, Priscilla (1761–1828), who married Sir Peter Burrell, later First Baron Gwydyr (1754–1820). Some of these versions remain in private hands.

Richard Cosway, Robert, Fourth Duke of Ancaster, n.d., 2 in. (5.1 cm) high, previously in the collection of Robert Rockliff, November 11, 1947, lot 99.

Richard Cosway, Portrait of Robert, 4th Duke of Ancaster, n.d., oval, 1 3/4 in. (4.4 cm) high, sold at Christie’s, London, Objects of Art and Vertu: Gold Watches, Miniatures, and Coins, February 21, 1949, lot 67.

Richard Cosway, Robert, 4th Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven, ca. 1778–79, watercolor on ivory, gold patch-box, diamond surround, hairwork, 1 1/4 in. (3.2 cm) (box: 12.1 cm wide), private collection.

Unknown Artist, after Richard Cosway, Robert, 4th Duke of Ancaster: “The Ancaster Box”, ca. 1780, watercolor on ivory, 1 3/4 in. (4.4 cm), private collection.

John Downman, Robert, 4th Duke, n.d., chalk, Grimsthorpe and Drummond Castle Trust, reproduced in Allan Chilvers, The Berties of Grimsthorpe (Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2010), 213.

Richard Cosway, Robert, the Fourth Duke, and His Sister Georgiana, n.d., oil, 154 x 146 in. (391.2 x 370.8 cm), Grimsthorpe and Drummond Castle Trust.

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 64, as Robert, Duke of Ancaster.

Possibly George Charles Williamson, Richard Cosway, R.A. (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1905), 115.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 64, p. 25, (repro.), as Robert, Duke of Ancaster.