John Smart, Portrait of Mr. Dickinson, ca. 1775

Chicago:

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “John Smart, Portrait of Mr. Dickinson, ca. 1775,” 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. 4, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2025), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.1592.

MLA:

Marcereau DeGalan, Aimee. “John Smart, Portrait of Mr. Dickinson, ca. 1775,” 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. 4, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2025. doi: 10.37764/8322.5.1592.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

This rapidly executed portrait sketch bears a double inscription in brown cursive ink in John Smart’s hand, on the interior backing card, identifying the sitter as “Mr. Dickinson.” The name of the sitter and the artist were later engraved on the former case (Fig. 1).¹ While the most well-known eighteenth-century figure with this surname is John Dickinson (1732–1808), the American attorney, politician, and a founding father of the United States, known portraits of him bear no resemblance to the present sitter.² Thus, the specific identity of this Mr. Dickinson remains inconclusive.³

Smart presents a middle-aged man in three-quarters pose, with his powdered hair worn en queue. Loose yet expressive strokes of color skillfully capture his slack jaw, double chin, and ruddy complexion and lend a liveliness to the composition. The sitter’s soft brown eyes meet the viewer’s gaze with quiet confidence. The rest of the figure is more hastily sketched, revealing a narrow-collared coat, under which a high stock collar and frilled vest are faintly indicated.

It remains uncertain whether John Smart consistently created preparatory sketches for each miniature on ivory that he painted, but it is known that a substantial number of these sketches were inherited by his son John James Smart (1805–1870) and later passed to the younger Smart’s daughter, Mary Ann Bose (1856–1934). After her death in 1934, the sketches were divided among three of her children: William Henry Bose (1875–1957), Lilian Dyer (1876–1955), and Mabel Annie Busteed (1878–1967). These collections were subsequently sold at auction through Christie’s, London, in December 1936 (Busteed sale), February 1937 (Bose), and November 1937 (Dyer).⁴ This particular miniature, which descended through Mabel Annie Busteed, was acquired by the Starr Family by at least 1958, when they gave the miniature to the Nelson-Atkins.⁵ No finished miniature on ivory of an individual named Dickinson has yet been discovered.⁶

Notes

1. The Nelson-Atkins reframed all its John Smart drawings on paper in 2024 on the occasion of the exhibition John Smart: Virtuoso in Miniature. The new frames are period replica, eighteenth-century gilt drawing frames. The vermeil case associated with Portrait of Mr. Dickinson was not original to the object, and the inscription reads, “M^ʀ Dɪᴄᴋɪɴsᴏɴ / ʙʏ / Jᴏʜɴ Sᴍᴀʀᴛ.”

2. See Charles Willson Peale, John Dickinson, 1782, oil on canvas, Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia, https://explorepahistory.com/displayimage.php?imgId=1-2-6CF. For more on John Dickinson, see Stanley K. Johannesen, “John Dickinson and the American Revolution,” Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques 2, no. 1 (Summer 1975): 29–49.

3. In her list of known sitters, Daphne Foskett records a “Mr. Dickenson.” See Foskett, John Smart: The Man and His Miniatures (London: Cory, Adams, and Mackay, 1964), 66. The miniature possibly appears in a Christie’s London sale as “Head of Mr. Dickenson,” December 17, 1936, lot 16. However, after this point, the spelling shifts to Dickinson; see Sotheby’s, London, “Catalogue of Fine Miniatures, Objects of Vertu, Gold Boxes, Etc.,” November 25, 1952, lot 44, as “A Miniature of Mr. Dickinson, by John Smart, head three-quarters sinister, gaze directed at spectator, hair en queue, unfinished tunic, painted on paper, oval, 2 1/2 in.”

4. Daphne Foskett reproduces the catalogue for these three sales in John Smart: The Man and His Miniatures, 78–90.

5. The Starr Family likely acquired the miniature directly from the 1952 Sotheby’s auction (see n. 3).

6. For more on the materiality of Smart’s drawings, see the “Technical Note,” by Rachel Freeman in “John Smart, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1786,” in this catalogue.

John Smart (1741–1811), London, by around 1783–1811;

By descent to his son, John James Smart (1805–1870), London, 1811–1870;

By descent to his daughter, Mary Ann Bose (née Smart, 1856–1934), Edinburgh, 1870–1934;

By descent to her daughter, Mabel Annie Busteed (née Bose, 1878–1967), Essex, 1934–1936;

Sold at her sale, Sketches and Studies for Miniature Portraits by John Smart, Christie’s, London, December 17, 1936, lot 16, as Mr. Dickenson [1];

Unknown man, by November 25, 1952 [2];

Sold at his posthumous sale, Fine Miniatures, Objects of Vertu, Gold Boxes, Etc., Sotheby’s, London, November 25th, 1952, lot 44, as Mr. Dickinson;

Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 1958 [3];

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

Notes

[1] Lot 16 also included “Head of Judge Jasper Yeates (1745–1817), which the Starrs also acquired. They sold this drawing in 1982. See Maggie Keenan, “John Smart, A Preparatory Sketch for a Miniature of Judge Yates, ca. 1765,” in The Starr Collection of Portrait Miniatures, 1500–1850: The Collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Supplement: Starr Miniatures in Other Collections), ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://nelson-atkins.org/starrsupp/Other-Locations/4790/.

[2] According to the 1952 sales catalogue, lots 1–55 were “The Property of a Gentleman (decd.).”

[3] It is possible the Starrs acquired the miniature from the 1952 auction. See catalogue entry n. 4.

John Smart: Virtuoso in Miniature, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, December 21, 2024–January 4, 2026, no cat., as Portrait of Mr. Dickinson.

Sketches and Studies for Miniature Portraits by John Smart (London: Christie’s, December 17, 1936), 15.

Catalogue of Fine Miniatures, Objects of Vertu, Gold Boxes, Etc. (London: Sotheby’s, November 25th, 1952), 7.

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), 265, as Mr. Dickinson.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 144, p. 51, (repro.), as Mr. Dickinson.