John Hoskins the Younger, Portrait of a Man, 1645

Chicago:

Blythe Sobol, “John Hoskins the Younger, Portrait of a Man, 1645,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1228.

MLA:

Sobol, Blythe. “John Hoskins the Younger, Portrait of a Man, 1645,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1228.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

Although the condition of this heavily abraded portrait makes it difficult to determine who created it,¹ it is probably one of a group of miniatures produced over a ten- to fifteen-year period, beginning in the mid-1640s, by John Hoskins the Younger, while he continued to use the inscription associated with the workshop of his father, John Hoskins the Elder (ca. 1590–1665). The miniatures by Hoskins the Elder and his followers were deliberately produced with a uniform style and technique to meet the demands of Hoskins’s aristocratic and royal patrons.² Miniatures specialists have widely debated how to distinguish works by Samuel Cooper (English, ca. 1608–1672), Alexander Cooper (1609–1658 or later), and the younger Hoskins from those by their master. By 1655, Hoskins the Younger had embarked on an independent career. He stopped including his father’s traditional “IH” monogram in his miniature portraits around 1660, enabling scholars to date the miniatures produced by Hoskins the Younger while still in his father’s studio from about 1645 to 1655, with a few examples painted in the late 1650s.³

These miniatures, exemplified by the Nelson-Atkins portrait, can be distinguished by their sobriety, murky brownish backgrounds, use of red-brown mark-making, and the distinct vantage point, as if the viewer is looking up from a slightly lower angle.⁴ The sitters are invariably posed with their faces turned to the right, in three-quarters view, their gazes directly addressing the viewer. John Murdoch proposed that the names of the sitters in this grouping, when known, along with their severity in dress and expression, indicate that Hoskins the Younger at this time “had a fairly committed parliamentary clientele.”⁵

This sitter may too have been a Parliamentarian, although similar cuirassier’s armor was worn by men on both sides of the English Civil War, even by Charles II in various portraits by Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) (Fig. 1). Certainly the Nelson-Atkins sitter had sufficient means to commission a portrait of himself as an active participant in this conflict from a noted miniaturist. Hoskins devotes attention to the variegated sheen of the steel armor, enumerating its gilt rivets and corded metal trim. Beyond its protective qualities, a suit of armor in this period was an extraordinary luxury, as soberly as it is presented to the viewer in this stark depiction of a man at war.

Notes

1. Treatment report by Carol Aiken, 2019, NAMA curatorial files.

2. John Murdoch writes that these later works “have long been recognized as problematic” and adds that “there is evidence that Hoskins [the Elder] had too much work to do himself. Lord Wentworth, later the Earl of Strafford, [wrote to his wife] on 29 June 1636: ‘My picture in great you have, and one in little if I can possibly procure it; but Mr Hoskins hath so much work as I fear he will not have time to spare.’” John Murdoch, Seventeenth-Century English Miniatures in the Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1997), 44.

3. John Murdoch, “John Hoskins and His Son,” in The English Miniature (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 102. Note that the date of this miniature, while clearly visible as 1645 under magnification, appears in this photograph to be inscribed 1664 due to the reflection of the glass bezel on the inscription

4. John Murdoch, “John Hoskins and His Son,” 102.

5. John Murdoch, “John Hoskins and His Son,” 102. Of two 1646 miniatures, General Davison and Soldier aged 27, Murdoch describes them both as in “the Commonwealth ‘sad-coloured’ mode, with brown backgrounds. They are severe and honest images of proud Christian soldiers, viewed slightly from below.” The miniature of General Davison is particularly germane to the miniature under examination here: John Hoskins the Younger, General Davison, 1646, watercolor on vellum, 2 1/16 in. (5.1 cm), The Buccleuch Collection.

Mrs. H. M. Gray, by 1952;

Her sale, Objects of Art and Vertu, Snuffboxes and Watches, the Property of a Gentleman and From Various Sources and English and Continental Miniatures, the Property of Mrs. H. M. Gray, Christie, Manson, and Woods, Ltd., London, February 6, 1952, lot 28, as A Gentleman, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1952–August 7, 1958 [1];

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

Notes

[1] The lot is described as “Portrait of a Gentleman—by John Hoskins – signed with initials and the date 1645—three-quarter face to the right, wearing armour and with lace collar, his dark hair flowing to his shoulders—oval—2 in. high—in gold frame, the back enamelled with a conventional rose reserved on a pale blue ground in scalloped border— shagreen case.” The miniature is illustrated on the facing page. The annotated catalogue for this sale is located at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Miller Nichols Library. The annotations are most likely by Mr. or Mrs. Starr. Lot 28 is circled twice, in blue pen and pencil, with pencil markings noting “$218” and “3”. Leggatt bought lot 28 for £81 18s. Archival research has shown that Leggatt Brothers served as purchasing agents for the Starrs. See correspondence between Betty Hogg and Martha Jane Starr, May 15 and June 3, 1950, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.

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

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

Objects of Art and Vertu, Snuffboxes and Watches, the Property of a Gentleman and From Various Sources and English and Continental Miniatures, the Property of Mrs. H. M. Gray (London: Christie, Manson, and Woods, February 6, 1952), 6, as A Gentleman.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 264.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 7, p. 11, (repro.), as Unknown Man.