John Hoskins the Elder, Portrait of a Man, Possibly Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset, ca. 1622

Chicago:

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “John Hoskins the Elder, Portrait of a Man, Possibly Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset, ca. 1622,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1226.

MLA:

Marcereau DeGalan, Aimee. “John Hoskins the Elder, Portrait of a Man, Possibly Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset, ca. 1622,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1226.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

This early miniature of a man by John Hoskins adopts the gold-bordered, flat style of the Elizabethan era and retains continuity with court miniaturists Nicholas Hilliard (English, 1547–1619) and Isaac Oliver (English, about 1566–1617), whose examples form important cornerstones of the museum’s collection of seventeenth-century portrait miniatures.¹ Hoskins’s polychromatic stippling and attention to detail, both hallmarks of the artist’s style, are evident in the sitter’s features and clothing.² The sitter’s head and shoulders appear turned slightly to right, with his brown eyes confronting the viewer’s gaze. His features are stippled and hatched in varying shades of red, cream, and ochre, with dark brown used for the shadows and touches of white in the eyes. There are fine details, such as the layers of impasto in the sitter’s white falling band collar of unstarched linen and lace. In a technique that was typical of the time, Hoskins laid down the red curtain background with flat red paint and then used a wet brush to lift the red paint in strokes, giving the effect of folds.  Hoskins added his monogram “IH” at left in gold and also employed gold as highlights on the buttons and stripes of the sitter’s white-and-gold doublet. Although the portrait is undated, it is believed to have been created around 1622, based on portraits with similar backgrounds.

The sitter’s features, including a high forehead, auburn hair, elongated mustache, and pointed goatee, align with portraits of Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset (English, ca. 1587–1645), at least three of which are by Hoskins.³ Carr was the son of a Scottish nobleman who gained the attention of King James I in 1607, rising quickly in royal favor, becoming Viscount Rochester, a privy counselor, and Knight of the Garter in 1611. He fell in love with Frances Howard, the wife of Robert Devereux, and convinced the king to annul her marriage. During this process, Howard secretly poisoned Sir Thomas Overbury, who opposed the annulment. Carr and Howard were married, and he was made 1st Earl of Somerset and treasurer of Scotland in 1613. However, the circumstances of Overbury’s death were exposed, and both Carr and Howard were found guilty of murder in 1616 and sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower of London. Although Howard was pardoned in 1622, Carr was not released until 1624. He died twenty-one years later in obscurity.⁴

Despite some inconsistencies in the portrait’s details, such as the sitter’s eye color and the absence of Carr’s Garter ribbon, the portrait is believed to be of Carr or another courtier of James I or the Prince of Wales, soon to become Charles I (1600–1649).⁵

Notes

1. The gold enameled floral locket, possibly Dutch, is similar to those found with select examples of miniatures from the 1630s. See Alexander Cooper, A Gentleman, ca. 1630, 1 11/16 x 1 3/8 in. (4.3 x 3.5 cm), Cincinnati Museum of Art, 1990.1602, https://www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org/art/explore-the-collection?id=19771301; Alexander Cooper, Elizabeth Stuart, Electress Palatinate and Queen of Bohemia, 1630s, 1 13/16 x 1 3/8 in. (4.5 x 3.6 cm), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, SK-A-4304, https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/SK-A-4304.

2. Throughout the 1620s and 1630s, working for Charles I and visibly responding to the different influences of immigrant painters such as Paul van Somer (1577–1621) and Daniel Mytens (1590–1647), Hoskins developed his own version of a stipple technique (laying in small dots of paint), minutely polychromatic in brown, deep red, blue, yellow, and opaque white. This technique, once perfected, remained stable until at least the end of the 1630s. See David Piper, Catalogue of Seventeenth-Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, 1625–1714 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), 322.

3. See Nicholas Hilliard, Robert Carr, ca. 1611, 1 3/4 x 1 3/8 in. (4.4 x 3.5 cm), National Portrait Gallery, London, 4260, https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw05898; after John Hoskins, Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, after 1630, 9 1/2 x 7 1/4 in. (24.1 x 18.4 cm), National Portrait Gallery, London, 1114, https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw05899; and John Hoskins, Robert Carr, 6th Earl of Somerset, ca. 1620, 1 3/4 x 1 7/16 in. (4.5 x 3.6 cm), Royal Collections, London, RCIN 420939, https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/1/collection/420939. See also John Hoskins, A Man said to be Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, ca. 1620, 1 1/2 x 1 1/4 in. (3.8 x 3.2 cm), Victoria and Albert Museum, London, EVANS.4, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1070373. There are (or were) other versions of Carr in the Buccleuch and Rayne Collections, as cited in John Murdoch, Seventeenth-Century English Miniatures in the Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1997), cats. 39, 77.

4. For information on Robert Carr, see Hugh Chisholm, ed., “Somerset, Robert Carr, Earl of,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911), 25:387–88.

5. The Nelson-Atkins sitter has brown eyes, as does the sitter in the National Portrait Gallery portrait presumed to be of Carr, after another painting by Hoskins (no. 1114; see n. 3). However, the painting by Hoskins of Carr in the Royal Collection Trust shows a sitter with blue eyes. Furthermore, if the Nelson-Atkins sitter is indeed Carr, he is not wearing his ribbon of the Garter, which would date the portrait to the years of his incarceration, ca. 1622–1625.

Possibly Thomas Brydges Barrett (1698–1757), Lee Priory, Kent, by 1757 [1];

Possibly purchased at his posthumous sale, Sale of the Curious Collection of T. Barrett of Lees in Kent, by Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (1717–1797), Strawberry Hill, Middlesex, 1758–at least 1774 [2];

Possibly by descent to his cousin’s daughter, Anne Seymour Damer (1748–1828), Strawberry Hill, Middlesex, and London, 1797–1811 [3];

Possibly given to Elizabeth Laura Waldegrave, Countess Waldegrave (1760–1816), Strawberry Hill, Middlesex, 1811 [4];

Possibly by descent to her son, Lieutenant-Colonel John James Waldegrave, 6th Earl of Waldegrave (1785–1835), Strawberry Hill, Middlesex, by 1816 [5];

Possibly by descent to his son, George Edward Waldegrave, 7th Earl of Waldegrave (1816–1846), Strawberry Hill, Middlesex, by 1835–1842;

Possibly purchased from his sale, A Catalogue of the Classic Contents of Strawberry Hill Collected by Horace Walpole, George Robins, London, May 10, 1842, lot 10, as Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, by John Boykett Jarman (1782/83–1864), London, 1842 [6];

Harry Seal (1873–1948), Ullesthorpe House, Leicestershire, by 1948;

Purchased from his posthumous sale, The Choice Collection of Portrait Miniatures, formed by the late Harry Seal, Esq. of Ullesthorpe House, Rugby, Christie, Manson, and Woods, London, February 16, 1949, lot 95, as A Gentleman, by Backer, 1949 [7];

Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by January 19, 1950 [8];

By descent to their son and daughter-in-law, Mr. John Philip (b. 1933) and Mrs. Barry Mann (b. 1939) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 2011;

Given to their son, James Philip Starr (b. 1965), Kansas City, MO, by 2017–2018;

His gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2018.

Notes

[1] After Barrett’s death, “in consequence of having made no will, by which his personal property went between his widow, his son, and daughter, his (son being then a minor,) some parts of his cabinet pictures and curiosities were brought to the hammer: and of his exquisite collection of miniatures by Oliver, Hilyard, Cooper, Hoskins, and Petitot, &c., several fell into the hands of Horace Walpole, afterwards Earl of Orford, and formed some of the most valuable gems of Strawberry Hill. Mention of them will be found in the description of that villa in Lord Orford’s Works, ii. 474, 475. 477, &c. where Mr. Barrett’s collection is dignified with the epithet of curious.” According to Thomas Brydges Barrett, List of Pictures at the Seat of T. B. Brydges Barrett, Esq., (Lee Priory, Kent: John Warwick, 1817), 3–4.

[2] “Robert Carr earl of Somerset, in his latter time, favourite of king James; by Hoskins: bought at the sale of the curious collection of T. Barrett of Lees in Kent, 1758.” See A Description of the Villa of Horace Walpole, Youngest Son of Sir Robert Walpole Earl of Orford at Strawberry-Hill, near Twickenham (Strawberry Hill: Thomas Kirgate, 1774), 81.

Barrett’s son, Thomas Barrett (1743–1803), was later a friend of Horace Walpole. “The house [Lee Priory] inherited by this Thomas Barrett in 1757, when in his fourteenth year, was an unpretentious building of seventeenth-century date.” He “became a friend of Lord Orford and so a member of the Walpole circle. Almost certainly it was Horace Walpole who introduced the architect, James Wyatt, to Barrett when the latter was minded to improve or rebuild his home.” Robert H. Goodsall, “Lee Priory and the Brydges Circle,” Archaeologia Cantiana 77 (1962): 1. Walpole describes one visit to Barrett’s estate on August 28, 1780: Paget Toynbee, “Horace Walpole’s Journals of Visits to Country Seats,” The Volume of the Walpole Society 16 (1927–1928): 76–77. A May 14, 1792, letter from Walpole to Barrett further suggests a friendship between the two. See Lorne Campbell, The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Schools (London: National Gallery, 1998), 122.

[3] Anne was Walpole’s goddaughter and the daughter of his cousin, Henry Seymour Conway (1721–1795).

[4] Elizabeth was Walpole’s great niece and the daughter of Maria Walpole, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh (1736–1807).

[5] According to Elizabeth’s will, “I also give and bequeath to my said eldest son [John James Earl of Waldegrave] all my household goods and furniture plate silver pictures books and effects whatsoever . . . in any other house or houses which I may occupy at the time of my decease. . . . the same house the property of Horace Earl of Orford deceased and which were bequeathed to me for life.” “Will of Elizabeth Laura Countess of Waldegrave, Widow, Dowager,” The National Archives, Kew, PROB 11/1578/67.

[6] The 1842 sales catalogue reads, “A ditto [miniature portrait] of Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, in his latter time, the favourite of King James I., in water colours, by Hoskins, and high finished. Purchased at the sale of T. Barrett, Esq., of Lees Court, in Kent, in the year 1758.” Lot 10 sold for £14 14s to “Jarman.”

John Boykett Jarman (1782/83–1864) was a London dealer of jewelry and curiosities who at one point worked at 34 St. James’s Street.

[7] The 1949 sales catalogue reads, “A Gentleman, by John Hoskins, signed with monogram. Nearly full face, in gold embroidered white doublet, lace-edged white ruff, with long fair hair, auburn moustache and pointed beard; red curtain background. Oval—1 5/8 in. high—in gold frame enamelled in colours with a green parrot on a mille-fiori ground—17th Century. See Illustration.” Purchased by the miniature dealer, Backer, for £141 15s.

[8] This earliest-known date of ownership is according to Martha Jane and John W. Starr lending the miniature to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1950.

John Hoskins, Robert Carr, 6th Earl of Somerset, ca. 1620, 1 3/4 x 1 7/16 in. (4.5 x 3.6 cm), Royal Collections, London, RCIN 420939.

John Hoskins, A Man, said to be Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, ca. 1620, watercolor on vellum, 1 1/2 x 1 1/4 in. (3.8 x 3.2 cm), The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, EVANS.4.

After John Hoskins, Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, after 1630, 9 1/2 x 7 1/4 in. (24.1 x 18.4 cm), National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG 1114.

Four Centuries of Miniature Painting, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 19–March 19, 1950, no cat., as Portrait of a Gentleman.

British Portrait Miniatures: An Exhibition Arranged for the Period of the Edinburgh International Festival, The Arts Council of Great Britain, Edinburgh, August 20–September 18, 1965, no. 53, as Robert Carr, or Ker, Earl of Somerset.

Possibly A Description of the Villa of Horace Walpole, Youngest Son of Sir Robert Walpole Earl of Orford at Strawberry-Hill, near Twickenham (Strawberry Hill: Thomas Kirgate, 1774), 81.

Possibly A Catalogue of the Classic Contents of Strawberry Hill Collected by Horace Walpole (London: Smith and Robins, May 10, 1842), 141, as Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset.

Burlington Magazine 91, no. 550 (January 1949): v, (repro.), as A Gentleman.

The Choice Collection of Portrait Miniatures, formed by the late Harry Seal, Esq. of Ullesthorpe House, Rugby (London: Christie, Manson, and Woods, February 16, 1949), 18, as A Gentleman.

Martha Jane and John W. Starr, “Collecting Portrait Miniatures,” Antiques 80, no. 5 (November 1961): 438, (repro.), as Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset.