Samuel Cotes, Portrait of a Man, Probably John Whitelock, 1780

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “Samuel Cotes, Portrait of a Man, Probably John Whitelock, 1780,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1348.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “Samuel Cotes, Portrait of a Man, Probably John Whitelock, 1780,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1348.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

The sitter in this miniature remained unidentified until the discovery of a nearly identical likeness by Samuel Cotes, which sold at auction in 2013 and thus introduced the name John Whitelock (Fig. 1).¹ The sitters’ shared facial features are striking, as are details of their clothing, including the same mulberry coat with a seafoam-colored lining.² The biggest difference between the two miniatures are the dates inscribed on them: 1772 for the miniature at auction and 1780 for the Nelson-Atkins miniature. Other differences include the color of the waistcoat, the height of the wig, and, in the later work, a general slimness in the face that often comes with age.

In the Nelson-Atkins portrait, a neat basketweave braid fills the back of the case; it was common practice to include hairwork in portrait miniatures as an additional means of representation and remembrance. The hair may belong to Whitelock or his unnamed wife, who is depicted on the verso of the 1772 miniature.³ It remains unclear why Cotes painted Whitelock twice, but the fact that he wears the same coat in both portraits suggests that the 1780 miniature may be a copy of the earlier one, perhaps even a posthumous portrayal.

Whitelock gazes up at us, eyebrows raised, with an expression of surprised disinterest. His complexion, while first appearing freckled with sunspots, acquires a rosiness through Cotes’s distinctive paint handling; it contains dots of orangey pink amid dashes of gray-blue, not unlike the color of his powdered wig. The wig is one of the most defined elements in the work; Cotes makes no attempt to hide his brushstrokes. At the back, below two queues, is the black bow of a bag wig.

The black pigment is stark against the white powdered hair, but it appears across the composition: in the shadow of the man’s collar, throughout his blue eyes, and in the artist’s signature and date. Despite his prominent use of black, Cotes’s favored purple and mint-green pigments dominate the composition and mirror the attire in his other portraits within the Nelson-Atkins collection: Portrait of a Woman and Portrait of Master Grosvenor, Probably Richard Grosvenor. Cotes’s predilection for using more gum arabic than was customary results in greater color saturation, much like the pigment used in oil paintings by his brother and instructor, Francis Cotes (English, 1726–1770).

Notes

1. Samuel Cotes, A Gentleman and a Lady called Mr. and Mrs. John Whitelock, 1772, watercolor on ivory, 2 3/16 in. (5.5 cm) high, sold at Fine Portrait Miniatures, Bonhams, London, May 30, 2013, lot 42, https://www.bonhams.com/auction/20767/lot/42/. Genealogical research into John Whitelock has not yet yielded further discoveries.

2. While Whitelock’s coat is generally a wash of purple, the vest bursts with speckles of gold and playful loops of white, indicating a swiftly rendered frilled cravat. According to conservation treatment by Carol Aiken from October 29 to November 9, 2018, the pigment does not contain shell gold; Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.

3. While the 1772 portrait pair could have been commissioned as a marriage portrait, the two appear to be in their thirties or forties.

Mrs. Helen Carew (d. by 1951), by 1951 [1];

Purchased from her posthumous sale, Objects of Art and Vertu: Fine Gold Watches and Boxes and Miniatures: The Property of Amie, Lady Noble; Allan Lennox-Boyd, Esq., M. P.; John Vincent, Esq., J. P.; Mrs. Helen Carew, decd.; A. R. Cox, Esq., decd.; and A Gentleman, Christie, Manson, and Woods, London, October 15, 1951, lot 35, as Portrait of a Gentleman, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1951–1958 [2];

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

Notes

[1] “Mrs. Carew gave from the Farquhar Matheson Collection twenty-five snuff-boxes in gold, enamel, and other materials, and a group of objects of silversmiths’ work,” according to Victoria and Albert Museum, Review of the Principal Acquisitions During the Year (London: H. M. Stationary Office, 1920), 57. Basil Long mentions a Carew in an article on Richard Crosse: “The largest existing collections of miniatures by Richard Crosse are probably those belonging to the Rev. W. E. Crosse Cross and Mr. Charles Robert Sydenham Carew. The latter inherited his collection from the late Rev. Robert Baker Carew, of Collipriest, near Tiverton . . . the remainder of Mr. Charles Carew’s collection, including numerous miniatures by Crosse and a full-length portrait of a Miss Crosse, is at Collipriest.” Basil Long, “Richard Crosse, Miniaturist and Portrait-Painter,” Volume of the Walpole Society 17 (1928): 65. Charles Robert Sydenham Carew (1853–1939) married Muriel Mary, who died in 1939. None of his siblings were named Helen or married a Helen, and none died in 1950 or 1951. Another Helen Carew (nee Wyllie) was close friends with author Oscar Wilde, but died in 1928 at the age of 72.

[2] Described in the auction catalogue as “Portrait of a gentleman, by Samuel Cotes, signed and dated 176–, wearing mauve coat with green facings and powdered wig, oval, 2 in. high.” The annotated catalogue for this sale is located at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Miller Nichols Library. The annotations are most likely by Mr. or Mrs. Starr. The lot number is circled in pen and pencil, with “52,” and “? refer to miniature 178–” written next to the lot. The Starrs likely saw the miniature in person and believed the date was more likely to be 178– than 176–. Leggatt purchased lot 35 for £9 9s. The annotated “178–” date aligns with the date the miniature had in 1971. Archival research has shown that Leggatt Brothers served as purchasing agents for the Starrs.

Catalogue of Objects of Art and Vertu: Fine Gold Watches and Boxes and Miniatures: The Property of Amie, Lady Noble; Allan Lennox-Boyd, Esq., M. P.; John Vincent, Esq., J. P.; Mrs. Helen Carew, decd.; A. R. Cox, Esq., decd.; and A Gentleman (London: Christie, Manson, and Woods, October 15, 1951), 7, as Portrait of a Gentleman.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 45, p. 19, (repro.), as Unknown Man.