George Engleheart, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1785

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “George Engleheart, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1785,” 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: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1384.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “George Engleheart, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1785,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1384.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

This miniature of an attractive young woman wearing a fashionably low-cut dress, which is set in a nineteenth-century pearl bezel, is of a type that appealed to many twentieth-century collectors. A family member of the sitter presumably commissioned this portrait as a token of love, loss, or memory; it eventually joined the successive collections of Lionel Barned Mozley (1847–1933) and Ethel Floersheim (1876–1959), neither of whom ever married or had families of their own. Both had significant collections of portrait miniatures, however, which may have been developed in an effort to acquire the company of imagined ancestors, in the absence of any familial ties to the subjects themselves.¹

This portrait is characteristic of the middle phase of Engleheart’s career, with its understated colors and stylized brushwork.² The sitter wears a muslin or cotton chemise with a double-frilled collar, a style the Duchess of Devonshire popularized in 1784.³ While the sitter’s dress is of the palest pink, her hair appears light blue, likely the effect of using white powder over raven hair. The sitter’s coiffure is as wide as it is tall, aligning with 1780s trends, and is further elevated by a false hairpiece whose ends are concealed by a cap or scarf.⁴

Engleheart frequently painted curls, folds, and pleats in a stylized manner that facilitated the rapid production of portraits. The ease with which Engleheart created the patterned mark making is evident in his output; the 1780s were by far the most productive period of his artistic career.⁵

Notes

1. Catalogue of the Well-Known Collection of Miniatures and Piqué (London: Sotheby’s, June 15, 1933), lots 1–124; Catalogue of Objects of Art and Vertu: Miniatures and Watches (London: Christie, Manson, and Woods, June 26, 1950), lots 1–107. The sale of Floersheim’s collection, in particular, largely consisted of portraits of unidentified women.

2. Daphne Foskett, British Portrait Miniatures: A History (London: Methuen and Company, 1963), 122.

3. Georgiana Spencer Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, Extracts from the Correspondence of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, ed. Earl of Bessborough (London: John Murray, 1955), 91. The queen of France apparently gifted the chemise, which the Duchess wore to a concert in August 1784.

4. “‘Dress’ caps were frequently no more than a puff or twist of gauze or tulle”; Georgine De Courtais, Women’s Headdress and Hairstyles in England (London: B. T. Batsford, 1986), 84; Michael Kwass, “Big Hair: A Wig History of Consumption in Eighteenth-Century France,” American Historical Review 111, no. 3 (June 2006): 639n40. Women rarely purchased whole wigs, instead using false hair to add dimension. The larger, looser, and slightly darker curls at the back of her hair differ from the uniform hair closer to her hairline.

5. George Williamson and Henry Engleheart, George Engleheart 1750–1829: Miniature Painter to George III (London: George Bell and Sons, 1902), 36–37, 45. According to Engleheart’s fee book, 1788 was his most productive year, with 228 portraits completed, followed by 1787, 1786, and 1783. At this time, he charged between eight and ten guineas per miniature.

Lionel Barned Mozley (1847–1933), Marylebone, Middlesex, England, by 1929–1933 [1];

Purchased from his posthumous sale, The Well-Known Collection of Portrait Miniatures, Pique, Enamels, and Objects of Vertu: The Property of Lionel Mozley, Esq. (deceased), Sotheby’s, London, June 15, 1933, lot 104, as A Lady, by Ethel Louisa Caroline Pauline Floersheim (1876–1959), Hove, Sussex, England, 1933–1950 [2];

Purchased from her sale, Objects of Art and Vertu, Miniatures, Watches: the Property of Miss Ethel Floersheim; Admiral Sir Rudolph Burmester, K. B. E., C. B., C. M. G.; A Lady of Title; and Others; Also Faberge Cigarette Cases: the Property of Mrs. Michael Pugh, Christie, Manson, and Woods, London, June 26, 1950, lot 84, as A Lady, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1950–1958 [3];

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

Notes

[1] Lionel B. Mozley was born in 1847 to banker and mayor of Liverpool, Charles Mozley (1797–1881). Lionel never married and was employed as solicitor; see advertisement in Times (London) (May 7, 1881): 17. According to England and Wales National Probate Calendar, index of wills, 1933, p. 168, “Lionel Barned of 48 Cumberland-mansions Seymour-place Marylebone Middlesex died 22 April 1933 Probate London 19 May to Montague Bender and Montie Phillip Arnold solicitors. Effects £10852 7s. 5d.” Lionel was eighty-six years old at the time of his death; see England and Wales Civil Registration Death Index, deaths registered in April, May, and June 1933, p. 92. Mozley was listed as age fourteen in an 1861 census. Mozley presented and bought portraits at the Christie’s sale, April 6–29, 1916 (to benefit the British Red Cross Society). Per a label on the object’s case verso, Mozley lent the miniature for the Engleheart exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, in 1929.

[2] According to the sales catalogue price list, Floersheim bought lot 104 for £25. In the sales catalogue, the miniature is illustrated on the facing page, along with a note: “Exhibited at the Engleheart Exhibition, no. 344.” No. 344 matches the label on the case verso. Although Mozley did lend a miniature no. 344 to the 1929 exhibition at the Victoria and Albert, London, it was a portrait of Mr. Phelp, dated 1816. The only undated portrait of a woman lent by Mozley was no. 37, A Lady.

Ethel L. C. Floersheim was born in 1876 to Louis Ferdinand Floersheim (1835–1917) and Julia Frances Ellis Eva Baddeley (1848–1931). In 1901, Ethel (along with her two siblings) inherited the family’s Pennyhill Park estate and £5,000 each. She never married and died in 1959 at the age of 83.

[3] The annotated catalogue for this sale is located at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Miller Nichols Library. The annotations were most likely made by Mr. or Mrs. Starr, with a circled lot number, an “X,” “60,” and a cursive “Leggatt.” The miniature is illustrated on the facing page, along with a circled lot number below the illustration. According to Art Prices Current (London: Art Trade Press, 1952), 27:A145, Leggatt bought the miniature for £63. Archival research indicates that the Starrs purchased many miniatures from Leggatt Brothers, either directly or with Leggatt acting as their purchasing agent.

Exhibition of Miniatures by George Engleheart, J. C. D. Engleheart, and Thomas Richmond, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, May–June 1929, no. 37, as A Lady [1].

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 74, as Unknown Lady [2].

Notes

[1] The label on the case verso incorrectly lists this miniature’s exhibition number as no. 344. Although Mozley did lend a miniature no. 344, it was a portrait of Mr. Phelp, dated 1816. The only undated portrait of a woman lent by Mozley was no. 37, A Lady.

[2] “74” corresponds with a separate label on the case verso, written in green ink.

Exhibition of Miniatures by George Engleheart, J. C. D. Engleheart, and Thomas Richmond, exh. cat. (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1929), 9, as A Lady.

Catalogue of the Well-Known Collection of Portrait Miniatures, Pique, Enamels, and Objects of Vertu: The Property of Lionel Mozley, Esq. (deceased) (London: Sotheby’s, June 15, 1933), 14, as A Lady.

Objects of Art and Vertu, Miniatures, Watches: the Property of Miss Ethel Floersheim; Admiral Sir Rudolph Burmester, K. B. E., C. B., C. M. G.; A Lady of Title; and Others; Also Faberge Cigarette Cases: the Property of Mrs. Michael Pugh (London: Christie, Manson, and Woods, June 26, 1950), 13, (repro.), as A Lady.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 74, p. 28, (repro.), as Unknown Lady.