Horace Hone, Portrait of Jane Rainey, 1800

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “Horace Hone, Portrait of Jane Rainey, 1800,” 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. 3, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1424.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “Horace Hone, Portrait of Jane Rainey, 1800,” 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. 3, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024. doi: 10.37764/8322.5.1424

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

Previously this sitter was unknown; however, the recent discovery of an interior inscription revealed not only her identity but also the fact that this miniature had been passed down for three generations. The author of the inscription, Anne Jameson (b. 1837), identifies her “mother’s mother” as Jane Rainey. Jane was born in Dublin, Ireland, on January 29, 1784, to Arthur Rainey and Ann Roxborough.¹ Arthur Rainey moved his family from Dublin to Barbados in the 1790s, listing his occupation at the time as “merchant.”² While Arthur’s specific trade remains unknown, some Irish merchants visited Barbados to profit from the slave trade or to sell Irish provisions such as linen, butter, beef, or pork.³

Horace Hone painted Jane Rainey in 1800 when she was just sixteen years old, four years before her marriage to Ebenezer Ludlow (1777–1851) on August 28, 1804, in Somerset, England.⁴ Hone was working in Dublin at the time, and the Rainey family had probably already resettled in Ireland from Barbados. Hone may have connected with them through their common parish of the Presbyterian chapel on Eustace Street.⁵ Jane’s husband, Ludlow, was a cornet in the Winterbourne Troop of Cavalry and Yeomanry before becoming a Serjeant-at-Law in 1842.⁶ Jane and Ebenezer Ludlow had at least seven children, including their firstborn Catherine Ann (1805–1897), Anne Jameson’s mother.⁷ Jane Rainey Ludlow died ten years after her husband at Compton Greenfield Rectory in Bristol on July 23, 1861.⁸

The young Jane Rainey appears older and more mature than sixteen in her portrait, assisted by the blue stippling that Hone employs in the shadows of her undereye area and by her excellent posture and confident gaze. Her erect pose is accentuated by her elongated neck and the vertical creases in her dress. The primary colors of yellow and blue appear in the pleats of her bodice, cinched at her waist by a jeweled belt. Hone’s technique of scraping the surface creates texture and delineation amid her brown curls. Her fair Irish skin was no doubt reddened by her time in the Caribbean, but blushed appearances are also characteristic of Hone’s portraits of women.⁹ Another frequent feature, seen at the lower right of the miniature, is Hone’s connected “HH” monogram, with the year below.

Notes

1. She was baptized on March 2, 1784, according to “Jane Rainey,” Ireland Births and Baptisms, FHL film no. 100238, digitized on Ancestrylibrary.com.

2. Arthur and Ann had at least four children: two were born in Dublin (Jane and William), and two were born in Barbados (Mary Ann and Robert). William was also buried in Barbados, at the age of seven. “Jane Rainey,” baptized March 2, 1784, and “William Rainey,” baptized June 30, 1787, according to Ireland Births and Baptisms, 1620–1911, FHL film no. 100238; “Mary Ann Rainey,” born on April 8, 1792, and “Robert Rainey,” born on June 22, 1794, Barbados Church Records, 1637–1849, digitized on Ancestrylibrary.com.

3. Nini Rodgers, “The Irish in the Caribbean, 1641–1837: An Overview,” Irish Migration Studies in Latin America 5, no. 3 (November 2007): 149. Searches for a male enslaver with the surname Rainey have thus far proved unsuccessful.

4. Sir Bernard Burke, “Ebenezer Ludlow,” in A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland, ed. Ashworth P. Burke (London: Harrison and Sons, 1904), 263.

5. Thomas Smith James, The History of the Litigation and Legislation Respecting Presbyterian Chapels and Charities in England and Ireland (London: Hamilton Adams, 1867), 459. Horace’s grandfather, Nathaniel, was the treasurer of the Presbyterian chapel on Eustace Street, and his cousins (his uncle Joseph’s children) were baptized at the same place. Jane and her brother William Rainey were both baptized at the Presbyterian chapel on Eustace Street; see n. 2. The church was moved there from New Row in 1728, but the building no longer stands.

6. H. W. N. Ludwell, A History of Winterbourne (Winterbourne: District Community Association, 1972), digitized online at http://www.winterbourne.freeuk.com/ludwell.html. Other titles Ludlow held include town clerk of the city of Bristol and chairman of the Appellate and Judicial Court. See Gloucestershire Notes and Queries, ed. Rev. Beaver Blacker (London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1890), 4:9; “Gloucestershire Quarter Sessions,” cat. ref. NRA 7408 Gloucester Sessions, ref. Q, Gloucestershire Archives.

7. Their children included Catherine Ann, Margaret Agnes (b. 1806), Mary Jane (1807–1890), Ebenezer William (1808–1878), Arthur Rainey (1810–1890), John Thomas (1814–1873), and Margaret Agnes Ludlow (1816–1845). According to “McGregor; Joy; Ludlow” family tree, digitized on Ancestrylibrary.com.

8. Blacker, Gloucestershire Notes and Queries, 9.

9. See Horace Hone, Portrait of a Woman, called Mrs. Close, 1786, watercolor on ivory in an ormolu frame, 2 9/16 x 2 1/16 in. (6.5 x 5.2 cm), Cleveland Museum of Art, 1943.644, https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1943.644. Hone also tended to add winged edges resembling eyeliner to sitters’ eyes, as well as thick bottom eyelashes. The dots of eyelashes are subtle in the Nelson-Atkins portrait but visible around her right eye.

Jane Rainey (1784–1861), Dublin, 1800–1861;

By descent to her daughter, Catherine Ann Joy (née Ludlow, 1805–1897), Bristol, Gloucester, England, 1861–1897;

By descent to her daughter, Anne Jameson (née Joy, 1837–1929), Surrey, England, 1897–1929 [1];

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] According to the portrait’s inscribed backing card, “née Jane Rainer / (wife of [illeg.]. Serg^t. Ludlow) / my mother’s mother / A. Jameson (née Joy).” Anne Jameson had two children: Henry Lyster Jameson (1874–1922) and Anita Lyster Jameson (1879–1960). The portrait may have been passed down to Anita after her mother’s death at the age of 92. The Starrs were actively collecting miniatures in the 1940s and 1950s, so this portrait may have been purchased from a sale during Anita’s lifetime.

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 159, as Unknown Lady.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 159, p. 55, (repro.), as Unknown Lady.