Henry Edridge, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1805

Chicago:

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “Henry Edridge, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1805,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1364.

MLA:

Marcereau DeGalan, Aimee. “Henry Edridge, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1805,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1364.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

There is a certain honesty and directness to Henry Edridge’s portraits, as in this one of an unknown woman, painted around 1805. Neither as overtly flattering as Richard Cosway (1742–1826) or as brutally honest as John Smart (1741–1811), Edridge strikes a balance between the two, capturing the essence of his subjects with compositional elegance and realism.¹ Here the sitter’s beauty lies not in conventional attractiveness but in her character.² Her somewhat plain appearance (by the standards of the day) is offset by the dazzling sky background with hints of pink in the clouds and the depth of her blue eyes, which Edridge renders with great clarity.

The portrait exudes a sense of quiet dignity, reminiscent of a character from a Jane Austen novel. The sitter’s upright posture and composed expression suggest inner strength and resilience, as if in this portrait she goes about her life truthfully and bravely, without pretense or embellishment. The crisp upright ruffles at the shoulders of her white muslin wrap dress, with highlights of opaque white gouache, are the only flourish in her otherwise simple dress. Their seeming stiffness is due in part to a network of deftly drawn lines, which communicate their accordion folds and remind us of Edridge’s skill as a draftsman. Edridge was apprenticed to the mezzotint engraver William Pether (1738–1821) from the age of fifteen and acquired the ability to render detail through this laborious form of work.³ While he devoted the first part of his career to miniature painting, beginning in the 1790s he moved away from this genre exclusively, developing a new type of full-length portrait executed in pencil with touches of gray wash. This relatively late portrait on ivory, therefore, is somewhat rare in his oeuvre.

While the portrait shows signs of fading, particularly in the wash of pinks on the sitter’s face, its overall impact remains undiminished. With its meticulous attention to detail and nuanced portrayal of character, this portrait stands as a testament to Henry Edridge’s talent as both a draftsman and a miniaturist, capturing the essence of his subjects with depth and authenticity.

Notes

1. Stephen Lloyd made this observation during his October 2023 visit. Notes in NAMA curatorial files.

2. Lloyd visit, October 2023. Notes in NAMA curatorial files.

3. See Simon Houfe, “Henry Edridge, (1768–1821),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, September 23, 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/8513.

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.

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 179, 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. 179, p. 61, (repro.), as Unknown Lady.