Citation
Chicago:
Blythe Sobol, “George Engleheart, Portrait of Thomas James Mathias, ca. 1781,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1373.
MLA:
Sobol, Blythe. “George Engleheart, Portrait of Thomas James Mathias, ca. 1781,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1373.
Artist's Biography
See the artist’s biography in volume 4.
Catalogue Entry
An inscription by a later hand mounted inside the case of this miniature identifies the sitter as Thomas James Mathias (ca. 1754–1835), a British satirist and literary scholar.1Mathias’s year of birth is typically listed as 1754. There is no known record of his birth, but the 1754 date is most likely taken from the records of his entry into Trinity College, Cambridge, on July 2, 1770, at the age of sixteen. However, Mathias’s burial register, uncovered by Maggie Keenan, records his age at the time of his death as eighty-five years old, suggesting a birth year of 1750. General Register Office: Foreign Registers and Returns, class RG 33, piece 15, National Archives, Kew; Paul Baines, “Mathias, Thomas James (1753/4–1835), satirist and Italian scholar,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, September 23, 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/18334. See also Joseph Sheldon Mabbett, “Thomas James Mathias and the Pursuits of Literature” (PhD diss., University of Fribourg, 1964). Mathias is best known for his impeccable Italian translations as well as a satire published between 1794 and 1798, The Pursuits of Literature.2Baines, “Mathias, Thomas James”; Thomas Mathias, The Pursuits of Literature: A Satirical Poem, in Four Dialogues, with Notes (London: T. Beckett, 1798). The revised 1798 edition unites all prior volumes published between 1794 and 1797. After several years as a fellow at the University of Cambridge, Mathias served as treasurer and later librarian in the royal household under King George III.3Baines, “Mathias, Thomas James.” He was appointed sub-treasurer to the queen in 1782 and became a librarian at Buckingham Palace in 1812. The Mathias family was of an intellectual, artistic bent, with close ties to Queen Charlotte and the diarist Fanny Burney.4Baines, “Mathias, Thomas James.” Mathias’s grandparents Jacques Mathias (1662–?) and Elisabeth Marie Bardon (1665–ca. 1732) were French Huguenot refugees. By the 1730s they were well established in England; T. J. Mathias owned a conversation piece (informal group portrait) by Gawen Hamilton dating to that decade, titled A Musical Party, the Mathias Family, now at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (647). His uncle Gabriel Mathias (1719–1804) was a painter who studied under Allan Ramsay (1713–1784). Gabriel was later appointed to the office of the Privy Purse, while his brother Vincent—T. J. Mathias’s father—was a sub-treasurer in the queen’s household. Mathias’s brothers held similar royal appointments, either serving as treasurers or, in the case of his brother Andrew (1768–1823), surgeon extraordinary to the Queen. Their mother, Marianne (1724–1799), was the daughter of Alured Popple, Governor of Bermuda (1699–1744). Their sister Albinia was a close friend of Fanny Burney’s sister Charlotte. Albinia’s daughter Marianne Skerrett (1793–1887) became principal dresser and confidant of Queen Victoria, continuing the family’s long legacy of devoted royal service. Several family members sat for George Engleheart between 1781 and 1797, according to his fee book, with the earliest date being the most likely candidate for this portrait.5Engleheart painted a “Mr. Mathias, Jun.” in 1781, according to George Williamson’s transcription of Engleheart’s fee book. George Williamson, George Engleheart, 1750–1829, Miniature Painter to George III (London: George Bell and Sons, 1902), 105.
Engleheart depicts Mathias as a gentleman scholar. He is posed in three-quarters view before a background of muted grays and browns. His elegant but subdued attire is fitting for a Cambridge don of the time. The miniature’s small size and limited palette, along with Mathias’s hairstyle, in a queue: The long curl of a wig. with side buckle: A tightly rolled curl of hair set to the side of an eighteenth-century hairstyle or wig, from the French word boucle, or loop., is in keeping with the proposed completion date of around 1781. This date coincides with the end of what is known as the “modest phase” of Engleheart’s career, for the unpretentious styling of his portraits.6Graham Reynolds described the first part of Engleheart’s career as his “modest school” phase, taking after midcentury miniaturists like Samuel Cotes (English, 1733–1818) and Gervase Spencer (English, 1722–1763), whose unpretentious, small-scale portraits stand in contrast to the confidence and flair of work by later artists like Richard Cosway (English, 1742–1821) and John Smart (English, 1741–1811) (all of whom began by working in the earlier “modest” style). Graham Reynolds, English Portrait Miniatures (London: A. and C. Black, 1952), 120–30. The year 1781 also marks the date of Mathias’s first publication, a volume of Norse poetry.7Thomas James Mathias, Runic Odes, imitated from the Norse Tongue, in the manner of Mr. Gray (London: T. Payne, Meys-Gate; T. Becket, Adelphi; J. Sewell, Cornhill; and T. and J. Merrill, Cambridge, 1781). Both artist and sitter were on the cusp of change as they entered a more prominent phase of their careers.8Mathias’s portrait is enclosed in the lid of an ivory toothpick box of the same period, but as is often the case, the box and the miniature were likely brought together by a dealer to increase the value of both in the early twentieth century. Elle Shushan, conversations with Aimee Marcereau DeGalan and Katelyn Crawford, curators at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, March 27–31, 2017, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files. Georgian toothpick boxes were typically shaped as narrow rectangles, often with cut corners or rounded ends, as in this case. According to conservator Carol Aiken, the case and the miniature were almost certainly a later marriage, with a gold fillet dating to the twentieth century. Carol Aiken, conversations with the author, March 18–22, 2018, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.
Notes
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Mathias’s year of birth is typically listed as 1754. There is no known record of his birth, but the 1754 date is most likely taken from the records of his entry into Trinity College, Cambridge, on July 2, 1770, at the age of sixteen. However, Mathias’s burial register, uncovered by Maggie Keenan, research assistant at the Nelson-Atkins, records his age at the time of his death as eighty-five years old, suggesting a birth year of 1750. General Register Office: Foreign Registers and Returns, class RG 33, piece 15, National Archives, Kew; Paul Baines, “Mathias, Thomas James (1753/4–1835), satirist and Italian scholar,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, September 23, 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/18334. See also Joseph Sheldon Mabbett, “Thomas James Mathias and the Pursuits of Literature” (PhD diss., University of Fribourg, 1964).
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Baines, “Mathias, Thomas James”; Thomas Mathias, The Pursuits of Literature: A Satirical Poem, in Four Dialogues, with Notes (London: T. Beckett, 1798). The revised 1798 edition unites all prior volumes published between 1794 and 1797.
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Baines, “Mathias, Thomas James.” He was appointed sub-treasurer to the queen in 1782 and became a librarian at Buckingham Palace in 1812.
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Baines, “Mathias, Thomas James.” Mathias’s grandparents Jacques Mathias (1662–?) and Elisabeth Marie Bardon (1665–ca. 1732) were French Huguenot: A French Protestant who followed the teachings of John Calvin (1509–1564). Protestantism and particularly Calvinism were strongly opposed by the French Catholic government. Huguenots faced centuries of persecution in France, and the vast majority immigrated to other countries, including Great Britain and Switzerland, by the early eighteenth century. Due to their belief that wealth acquired through honest work was godly, Huguenot refugees in these countries brought with them a strong tradition of skilled artmaking and craftsmanship, particularly in silver and goldsmithing, silk weaving, and watchmaking. See also Edict of Nantes. refugees. By the 1730s they were well established in England; T. J. Mathias owned a conversation piece (informal group portrait) by Gawen Hamilton dating to that decade, titled A Musical Party, the Mathias Family, now at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (647). His uncle Gabriel Mathias (1719–1804) was a painter who studied under Allan Ramsay (1713–1784). Gabriel was later appointed to the office of the Privy Purse, while his brother Vincent—T. J. Mathias’s father—was a sub-treasurer in the queen’s household. Mathias’s brothers held similar royal appointments, either serving as treasurers or, in the case of his brother Andrew (1768–1823), surgeon extraordinary to the Queen. Their mother, Marianne (1724–1799), was the daughter of Alured Popple, Governor of Bermuda (1699–1744). Their sister Albinia was a close friend of Fanny Burney’s sister Charlotte. Albinia’s daughter Marianne Skerrett (1793–1887) became principal dresser and confidant of Queen Victoria, continuing the family’s long legacy of devoted royal service.
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Engleheart painted a “Mr. Mathias, Jun.” in 1781, according to George Williamson’s transcription of Engleheart’s fee book. George Williamson, George Engleheart, 1750–1829, Miniature Painter to George III (London: George Bell and Sons, 1902), 105.
-
Graham Reynolds described the first part of Engleheart’s career as his “modest school” phase, taking after midcentury miniaturists like Samuel Cotes (English, 1733–1818) and Gervase Spencer (English, 1722–1763), whose unpretentious, small-scale portraits stand in contrast to the confidence and flair of work by later artists like Richard Cosway (English, 1742–1821) and John Smart (English, 1741–1811) (all of whom began by working in the earlier “modest” style). Graham Reynolds, English Portrait Miniatures (London: A. and C. Black, 1952), 120–30.
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Thomas James Mathias, Runic Odes, imitated from the Norse Tongue, in the Manner of Mr. Gray (London: T. Payne, Meys-Gate; T. Becket, Adelphi; J. Sewell, Cornhill; and T. and J. Merrill, Cambridge, 1781).
-
Mathias’s portrait is enclosed in the lid of an ivory toothpick box of the same period, but as is often the case, the box and the miniature were likely brought together by a dealer to increase the value of both in the early twentieth century. Elle Shushan, conversations with Aimee Marcereau DeGalan and Katelyn Crawford, curators at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, March 27–31, 2017, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files. Georgian toothpick boxes were typically shaped as narrow rectangles, often with cut corners or rounded ends, as in this case. According to conservator Carol Aiken, the case and the miniature were almost certainly a later marriage, with a gold fillet dating to the twentieth century. Carol Aiken, conversations with the author, March 18–22, 2018, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.
Provenance
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.
Exhibitions
The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 80, as T.J. Mathias.
References
Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 80, p. 29, (repro.), as Portrait of Thomas James Mathias.
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