Attributed to John Cox Dillman Engleheart, After George Engleheart, Portrait of a Naval Officer, Possibly Rear Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, 1802

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “Attributed to John Cox Dillman Engleheart, After George Engleheart, Portrait of a Naval Officer, Possibly Rear Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, 1802,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1698.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “Attributed to John Cox Dillman Engleheart, After George Engleheart, Portrait of a Naval Officer, Possibly Rear Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, 1802,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1698.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

This miniature, traditionally identified as a portrait of Cuthbert Collingwood, later 1st Baron Collingwood (1748–1810), presents a number of questions regarding its sitter and artist attribution. Although it bears George Engleheart’s signature and an 1802 date, the miniature lacks the characteristic ad vivum quality of his work.¹ In 1802, Engleheart shared a studio with his eighteen-year-old nephew, John Cox Dillman Engleheart (hereafter JCD).² In his role as his uncle’s assistant, JCD not only painted Engleheart’s backgrounds but also copied entire miniatures.³ Closer inspection of select elements in this composition point to his involvement in its execution.

JCD began his career through imitation, and while some of his later portraits also resemble his uncle’s, they generally incorporate a darker palette and more detail.⁴ Based on the stylistic similarities of this work to JCD’s 1803 portrait of an unknown woman now at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London, it is likely that he painted more of Portrait of a Naval Officer than George Engleheart did.⁵ The sitters of both the V&A and Nelson-Atkins portraits share heavy-lidded, inexpressive gazes, and their flesh tones are rendered with orange and blue brushstrokes.

Identifying the sitter poses an additional quandary. Cuthbert Collingwood was a celebrated naval hero known for his “blue, clear and penetrating eyes,” whereas here, the sitter’s features appear rather generic, including the gray of his eyes.⁶ The sitter’s pupils lack the white fleck that indicates light reflecting back, a technique George Engleheart routinely employed, contributing to this portrait’s lifeless quality. The officer in this portrait is also wearing a Royal Navy uniform that is anachronistic for the inscribed date of 1802. Its low collar and white facings adhere to 1787–1795 regulation uniforms.⁷ The way in which the artist rendered the sitter’s gold braiding is also unusual; the braid on naval uniforms was linear along the lapel’s edge, rather than the crisscross pattern seen here.⁸ In 1802, Collingwood, who was then a rear admiral, would have worn a tall collar with blue facings, epaulettes, and two gold medals for his First of June (1794) and St. Vincent (1797) victories. Additionally, Collingwood was in Portsmouth from January 1802 until May, when he headed home to Morpeth, Newcastle, to spend the rest of the year with his family.⁹ Both George and JCD Engleheart were in London at the time of the painting, meaning that artist and sitter would have been in two different places.

It is possible that this portrait was painted posthumously, which would explain the sitter’s flat appearance, lifeless and potentially miscolored eyes, and his outdated uniform. He may have been identified as Collingwood around the time the miniature was reframed in a new case with forty-eight gold stars hand-painted on its blue glass reverse—thus elevating its worth not only with an ornate new case but also by giving it an association with a celebrated sitter.¹⁰ According to George Engleheart’s fee book, which is not a comprehensive list, he painted a “Mr. Collingwood” in 1780, but the absence of a military rank, which Engleheart included elsewhere in his fee book, makes Cuthbert Collingwood an unlikely prospect for this sitting.¹¹ JCD is known to have painted one admiral’s portrait and copied the background of at least four other Royal Navy officers’ portraits for his uncle in 1802, increasing the likelihood that JCD painted this miniature under his uncle’s name.¹²

The portrait provides a glimpse into George Engleheart’s working habits, specifically the role his nephew played in his studio. It reveals a longstanding artistic workshop practice, one Engleheart would have been familiar with from his own training with Sir Joshua Reynolds (English, 1723–1792), which relied heavily on copying and background work.¹³ Studio assistants enabled Engleheart to meet the high demand for his portraits, and his output increased accordingly.¹⁴ While evidence points to JCD Engleheart’s involvement in this portrait, the attribution remains inconclusive.

Notes

1. V. Remington, “Engleheart, George (1750–1829),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 18:452–53; George Williamson and Henry Engleheart, George Engleheart 1750–1829: Miniature Painter to George III (London: George Bell and Sons, 1902), 66. The signed and dated card is fastened to the ivory support with goldbeater’s skin, suggesting that it was not added at a later date. During a March 19–23, 2018 conversation, conservator Carol Aiken commented that the work was atypical for Engleheart and especially stylized in the face; see Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.

2. Roger and Carmela Arturi Phillips, “The True and Flawed Genius of John Engleheart (1784–1862),” in Portrait Miniatures: Artists, Functions and Collections, ed. Bernd Pappe and Juliane Schmieglitz-Otten (Petersburg: Michael Imhof, 2018), 198. Uncle and nephew shared a studio from 1798 until 1802; see Roger and Carmela Arturi Phillips, George Engleheart and His Nephew John Cox Dillman Engleheart (Hampshire: Portrait Miniature Club, 2016), 119.

3. According to Appendix 3, “Manuscript Lists of Works executed by John Cox Dillman Engleheart,” in Williamson and Engleheart, George Engleheart 1750–1829, 131, there is a section of portraits from 1801 to 1803 with the heading “Copied for my Uncle.”

4. JCD often included background settings and used rectangular ivory supports.

5. An Unknown Woman, 1802, watercolor on ivory, 3 1/8 x 2 3/8 in. (7.8 x 6 cm), Victoria and Albert Museum, London, P21-1930, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O82343/an-unknown-woman-portrait-miniature-engleheart-john-cox.

6. As a celebrated naval hero and close friend of Horatio Nelson (1758–1805), Cuthbert Collingwood frequently appeared in prints and paintings. While the Nelson-Atkins miniature shares some loosely similar physical characteristics with those works, there is not enough consistency to make a positive identification of any real substance. For Cuthbert’s eye color, see Captain A. Crawford, Reminiscences of a Naval Officer (Barnsley, UK: Chatham Publishing, 1999), 119.

7. According to the National Maritime Museum, epaulettes were only included in the naval uniform after 1795. After this regulation change, lapels and cuffs also changed to blue, and the collars became increasingly taller. The overall simplicity of this sitter’s uniform may indicate an undress uniform. For a comparative image, see Royal Naval Uniform: Flag Officer’s Undress Uniform, 1787–1795, handsewn wool and gilt buttons, 36 1/8 x 23 1/4 in. (91.8 x 59 cm) overall, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, UNI0017, https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-71231.

8. See the way in which trim with more linear dashes is depicted in other portraits of naval officers by Engleheart in Sir Pulteney Malcolm GCB GCMG (1768–1838), 1806, watercolor on ivory, oval, 3 7/8 in. (10 cm) high, sold at Bonhams, “Fine Portrait Miniatures,” April 8, 2010, lot 103; and Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald (1775–1860), 1812, watercolor on ivory, 3 3/8 x 2 3/4 in. (8.7 x 7 cm), sold at Christie’s, “The Collector: English Furniture, Works of Art and Portrait Miniatures,” May 21, 2019, lot 104, https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-6203472.

9. Max Adams, Admiral Collingwood: Nelson’s Own Hero (London: Head of Zeus, 2015), 189, 191–93. There is no mention of a long journey south to London, where Engleheart’s studio was located.

10. According to a March 19–23, 2018, conversation with conservator Carol Aiken, it is not a period case, and the stars have been painted on; see Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.

11. The 1780 portrait remains untraced. Engleheart was thorough in his inclusion of a military rank in his sitters’ titles. By 1780, Collingwood had been in the Royal Navy for nineteen years and had just received the rank of captain.

12. Williamson and Engleheart, George Engleheart 1750–1829, 131–32. In comparison, George Engleheart lists six officers in his fee book for 1802. JCD painted Admiral Thornborough on October 24, 1802, and copied the backgrounds of the following portraits for his uncle: Admiral Braithwaite (January 4), Captain Mitchell (January 15), Captain Rodney (February 17), and Admiral Watson (March 22). The Nelson-Atkins sitter does not resemble known portraits of Thornborough, Mitchell, Rodney, or Watson. Interestingly, Richard Braithwaite, Admiral of the White, was either uncle or older cousin to Cuthbert Collingwood, but he was seventy-four years old in 1802 and therefore too old to be the Nelson-Atkins sitter.

13. Daphne Foskett, British Portrait Miniatures: A History (London: Methuen and Company, 1963), 120.

14. Williamson and Engleheart, George Engleheart 1750–1829, 37. The number of Engleheart’s completed portraits increased from ninety-seven in 1797 to 131 in 1798, the year JCD joined his studio. Likewise, in the year of JCD’s departure, Engleheart’s output decreased suddenly from 103 pictures in 1803 to seventy-four the following year. This indicates that JCD may have had a hand in his uncle’s output of miniatures. It is, however, important to note that Engleheart’s fee book is not all encompassing, especially when considering the argument in Phillips, George Engleheart and His Nephew John Cox Dillman Engleheart, 78, that Alan Derbyshire discovered the pages of Engleheart’s fee book watermarked with the year 1805, which means that the list was compiled retrospectively.

Unknown owner, by December 17, 1936 [1];

Purchased from the unknown owner’s sale, Sketches & Studies for Miniature Portraits by John Smart: Miniatures, Objects of Vertu and Coins, Christie, Manson, and Woods, London, December 17, 1936, lot 60, as by English School, Portrait of a Nobleman, said to be Admiral Lord Collingwood, by Arthur, London, 1936 [2];

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] In the Christie’s December 17, 1936 sale, “Different Properties” sold lots 53–75.

[2] “English School: Portrait of a Nobleman, said to be Admiral Lord Collingwood (1750–1810); Portrait of a Gentleman, said to be Sir Samuel Romilly (1757–1818); and Portrait of a Gentleman, said to be William Pitt – (three).” According to the annotated auction catalogue, “Arthur” bought lot 60 for “2 – 10.” The vague English School attribution, as well as the suggestive title, may explain the uncertain artist and sitter identification of the Nelson-Atkins portrait. At least two other miniatures from this sale are currently in the Starr Collection; see John Smart, Portrait of Mr. Sharrock, ca. 1785, F58-60/141, and John Smart, Portrait of Colonel Clement Winstanley, 1780, F65-41/21.

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 82, as Lord Admiral Collingwood.

Sketches & Studies for Miniature Portraits by John Smart: Miniatures, Objects of Vertu and Coins (London: Christie, Manson, and Woods, December 17, 1936), 12, as by English School, Portrait of a Nobleman, said to be Admiral Lord Collingwood.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 82, p. 30, (repro.), as Lord Admiral Collingwood.