William Grimaldi, Portrait of a Woman, 1796

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “William Grimaldi, Portrait of a Woman, 1796,” 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, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1412.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “William Grimaldi, Portrait of a Woman, 1796,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1412.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

This portrait of a woman is housed in what is likely its original bezel, with six playing cards inside to help keep the portrait in place.¹ The work is signed and dated on the left side of the ivory support: “Grimaldi. AR. 1796.” William Grimaldi used both “Grimaldi AR” and “Grimaldi RA” between the years 1791 and 1797,² abbreviations that suggest membership at either London’s Royal Academy (RA) or the Académie Royale in Paris (AR), or both. Grimaldi did exhibit at the RA around this time—1791–93 and 1795–96³—although there is no evidence that he was a member. The RA exhibition listings describe him as “W. Grimaldi, R. A. Paris” and note that “those marked R. A. in Italics are Foreign,” suggesting that he presented himself as a member of the Académie Royale (AR).

Although Grimaldi worked in Paris from 1777 to 1784,⁴ there are no records connecting him to the French Academy either.⁵ Interestingly, when he exhibited again at the RA in 1798, he dropped the title “RA,” and he ceased to sign his miniatures either “RA” or “AR.” It is possible that Grimaldi may have been caught in a lie created to establish a noteworthy reputation and appeal to a continental clientele. Grimaldi continued to exhibit at the RA until 1830, apparently convincing others to overlook his exaggerated past.

According to his obituary, his “unaffectedly polished manners, amiable disposition, and invariable cheerfulness” made him highly likeable.⁶ This amiable disposition is one he apparently shared with the present sitter, whose delight is portrayed through a gentle grin—a hallmark of Grimaldi’s work. This “revolutionary smile,” once considered a scandalous gesture, coincided with Paris’s shifting sensibilities and perceptions.⁷

The portrait is painted with linear and hatched brushstrokes, with Grimaldi incorporating dashes of opaque white pigments into the sitter’s hair and clothes. She wears a blue bandeau in her powdered hair, echoing the fabric cinched around her waist. Delicate lace frills trim the edges of her dress, and she wears two strings of pearls around her neck. While her identity remains unknown, her surprising smile suggests that she appreciated Grimaldi’s distinctly continental flavor.⁸

Notes

1. According to conservation treatment completed by Stephanie Spence, January 29, 2019; report in NAMA curatorial files.

2. The dates of his known miniatures signed “RA” include 1791, 1792, 1794, and 1796. The dates of his known miniatures signed “AR” include 1792, 1793, 1795, 1796, and 1797. See Portrait Miniature of a Gentleman Identified as “Mr John Ord”, watercolor on ivory, 2 9/16 in. (6.5 cm) high, signed “Grimaldi RA, 1791,” sold at Chiswick Auctions, London, March 6, 2019, lot 33, https://www.chiswickauctions.co.uk/auction/lot/lot-33---william-grimaldibritish-1751-1830-portrait/?lot=108867; Portrait of a Man, signed “W. Grimaldi AR. 1792,” watercolor and bodycolor on ivory, 2 11/16 x 2 3/16 in. (6.8 x 5.6 cm), sold at Sotheby’s, Paris, “Trois Collections,” April 1, 2015, lot 17, https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2015/oeil-collectionneurs-tableaux-dessins-miniatures-pf1540/lot.17.html; Sir Joshua Reynolds, watercolor on ivory, 4 7/8 x 4 3/16 in. (12.3 x 10.6 cm), signed “W. Grimaldi. R.A. 1792,” Royal Collection Trust, RCIN 420828, https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/1/collection/420828/sir-joshua-reynolds-1723-1792; Miniature of a Gentleman, watercolor on ivory, 3 5/16 x 2 5/8 in. (8.3 x 6.5 cm), signed “Grimaldi AR 1793,” for sale at Gould Antiques, no. M0780, https://www.gouldantiques.com/en-GB/men/large-miniature-of-gent-signed-grimaldi-1793/prod_11491; Portrait of a Man, 2 9/16 x 2 3/16 in. (6.5 x 5.5 cm), signed “Grimaldi. AR. 1794,” for sale at Osenat, lot 148, https://www.osenat.com/en/lot/117192/16908476; Madame Anna Selina Storace, ivory, signed “Grimaldi, A.R. 1795,” listed in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Portrait Miniatures on Loan at the South Kensington Museum (London: Whittingham and Wilkins, 1865), 15, no. 229; Miniature of a Gentleman, watercolor on ivory, 2 11/16 in. (6.9 cm) high, signed “Grimaldi R.A. / 1796,” listed at Bonhams, London, “Silver, Objects of Vertu Including Flatware and Portrait Miniatures,” April 22, 2015, lot 29, https://www.bonhams.com/auction/22822/lot/29/william-grimaldi-british-1751-1830-a-portrait-miniature-of-a-gentleman-wearing-blue-coat-white-stock-chemise-and-cravat; Sir Thomas Hanmer, 2 15/16 in. (7.4 cm) high, signed “Grimaldi, AR. 1797,” sold at Christie’s, London, “Important Portrait Miniatures, Gold Boxes, and Objects of Vertu,” November 21, 2000, lot 210, https://www.art.salon/artwork/william-grimaldi_sir-thomas-hanmer-bt-1747-1828-facing-right-in-blue-coat-with-silver-buttons-and-red-collar-white-waistcoat-and-frilled-cravat-powdered-hair_AID947372.

3. He later exhibited at the RA from 1798 to 1812, 1815 to 1824, and in 1830, according to Algernon Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts: A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and Their Work from its Foundation in 1769 to 1904 (London: Henry Graves and George Bell and Sons, 1905), 3:326–27.

4. I have found no records of Grimaldi in Paris, but one source lists his addresses as “Place St. Michel, Paris, Aug. 1777 to Oct. 1783; Paris, Nov. 1783 to Dec. 1784”; The Nobilities of Europe, ed. Melville Henry Massue, Marquis de Ruvigny (London: Melville and Company, 1910), 440–41. His obituary in The Gentleman’s Magazine states: “From 1777 to 1783, he resided in Paris, where he became intimate, through his friend Abbé Clovet, the King’s Almoner, with a very high class of society.” Sylvanus Urban, “Obituary: William Grimaldi, Esq.,” The Gentleman’s Magazine 100 (June 1830): 567. The Grand Almoner of France was Cardinal de Rohan, who was appointed to the position in 1777, the same year Grimaldi visited Paris. Another more likely possibility for this “intimate” Parisian friend may be Jean-Baptiste Louis Clouet, called l’Abbé Clouet, who was a French geographer of the Royal Academy of Sciences.

5. Vanessa Remington, “Grimaldi, William, Marquess Grimaldi in the Genoese Nobility,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, September 23, 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/11633. I checked records from Explication des peintures, sculptures et autres ouvrages de Messieurs de l’Académie royale (Paris: Impr. Collombat) and Mercure de France (Paris: G. Cavelier) from the years 1777 to 1793 and found no mention of Grimaldi.

6. Urban, “Obituary: William Grimaldi, Esq.”

7. For more on the history of the smile in France, specifically its “revolution” that occurred around the same time as the 1789 French Revolution, see Colin Jones, The Smile Revolution in Eighteenth Century Paris (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

8. Remington, “Grimaldi, William.”

With Sidney Hand, London, by 1924–1952 [1];

Sold at his posthumous sale, Catalogue of Fine Portrait Miniatures, Objects of Vertu, Gold Boxes, Etc., Sotheby’s, London, November 25, 1952, lot 52, as A Lady [2];

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] Sidney Hand (1877–1952) was a London dealer, who died on May 18, 1952. According to the 1952 sales catalogue, “An Interesting Documentary Collection of Portrait Miniatures mostly signed by the Artists. The Property of a Gentleman (decd.) [Sold by Order of the Executors]” sold lots 1–55. His 1924 “Signed Miniatures” exhibition aligns with the 1952 catalogue description of a collection “mostly signed.” Hand may have had the work as early as 1916, when it was reproduced in The Connoisseur, but this remains unclear.

[2] Described in the catalogue as “A Miniature of a Lady, by William Grimaldi, signed Grimaldi A. R. 1796, head and shoulders, full face, wearing a white bandeau in her light hair, white dress and mauve sash, cloud and sky background, 2 3/4 in.” The Starrs bought multiple miniatures from this sale, including Solomon Alexander Hart, Portrait of Edmund Kean (F58-60/69), and they may have bought the Grimaldi miniature there, too.

Signed Miniatures, Sidney Hand, London, 1924, no. 11 [1].

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 155, as Unknown Lady.

Notes

[1] The exact dates of the exhibition are unknown.

The Connoisseur: An Illustrated Magazine for Collectors, ed. C. R. Grundy, 45 (May–August 1916): 209, 228, (repro.), as Miniature of a Lady.

Signed Miniatures, exh. cat. (London: Sidney Hand, 1924), 12, 18, (repro.).

Catalogue of Fine Portrait Miniatures, Objects of Vertu, Gold Boxes, Etc. (London: Sotheby’s, November 25, 1952), 8, (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 155, p. 54, (repro.), as Unknown Lady.