John Smart, Portrait of Charles Stewart, Lord Linton, later 7th Earl of Traquair, ca. 1771

Chicago:

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “John Smart, Portrait of Charles Stewart, Lord Linton, later 7th Earl of Traquair, ca. 1771,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1594.

MLA:

Marcereau DeGalan, Aimee. “John Smart, Portrait of Charles Stewart, Lord Linton, later 7th Earl of Traquair, ca. 1771,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1594.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

Charles Stewart, 7th Earl of Traquair (1746–1827), was a Scottish landowner born at Traquair House near Peebles. He was the only son of John Stewart, 6th Earl of Traquair, and bore the title Lord Linton until his father’s death in 1779, when he inherited the estate and became the 7th Earl of Traquair. In 1798, Stewart was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, reflecting his standing in society.¹ In August 1773, Stewart married Mary Ravenscroft, the second daughter of George Ravenscoft of Wykeham Hall in Lincolnshire. Although Daphne Foskett records a finished miniature of Lord Linton dated 1771 in her 1964 publication on Smart,² it remains untraced. However, a finished miniature of the 7th Earl of Traquair, signed by Smart and dated 1773, was recently discovered in the collection of Traquair House.³ It is possible Smart made the present sketch around 1771 and then developed two finished ivories: the untraced ivory from 1771 and, two years later, the other that is presently in the Traquair House. Alternatively, although less likely, Smart realized another sketch the year of Stewart’s marriage in 1773, the same year he completed a portrait of Stewart’s sister, Lucy, which also remains untraced.⁴ Charles and Mary’s children included Charles Stewart, 8th Earl of Traquair and the Hon. Louisa Stewart.⁵

John Smart’s portrait of the twenty-five to twenty-seven-year-old Lord Linton presents a youthful, fleshy-faced figure, notably absent of the lines and wrinkles that come with age and worry. He wears a pale green overcoat with a turned-down collar over a once-pink vest, now faded likely due to the use of fugitive pigments. Beneath this, he wears a high white stock collar with an elaborate frill. Stewart’s body faces the viewer squarely, but his head is turned to the left, gazing into the distance.

It is unclear whether John Smart consistently created preparatory sketches for each miniature on ivory that he painted;⁶ we do know, however, 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).⁷ This preparatory sketch, which descended through William Henry Bose, was acquired by the Starr Family by 1958.⁸

In 1784, Stuart left Traquair to seek his fortune on the Continent, returning in 1798 widowed and burdened with debt.⁹ In 1826, he developed a spa at Innerleithen to attract visitors to the area, calling it St. Ronan’s Wells after the popular novel by Sir Walter Scott.¹⁰ Stuart died a year later in 1827 at Traquair House.¹¹

Notes

1. Biographical information on Charles Stewart is largely taken from Sir James Balfour Paul, ed., The Scots Peerage: Founded on Wood’s Edition of Sir Robert Douglas’s Peerage of Scotland (Edinburgh: David Douglass, 1911), 8:408.

2. Daphne Foskett, John Smart: The Man and His Miniatures (London: Cory, Adams, and Mackay, 1964), 70.

3. Catherine Maxwell Stuart, Traquair House, to the author, October 1, 2024, NAMA curatorial files. The author is grateful to Stuart for sharing this information. A high resolution image of the miniature was not available at the time of publication.

4. Although the portrait remains untraced and is curiously spelled “Stuart” rather than “Stewart,” it is noted in Foskett, John Smart: The Man and His Miniatures, 74. There is another, albeit crude, portrait of her that remains in Traquair House; see “Lady Lucy Stuart / Cosmo Alexander (1724–1772) / Traquair House,” Art UK, accessed October 28, 2024, https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/lady-lucy-stuart-208725.

5. Paul, ed., The Scots Peerage, 408.

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.

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

8. Sold at Busteed sale, Christie’s, February 15, 1937, lot 10 (“Portrait of Lord Linton, probably Charles Stuart later 8th and last Earl of Traquair, in green coat and pink vest”). I am grateful to Blythe Sobol for this information. For further provenance information, see below.

9. Charles Stewart was also elected as a Royal Society Fellow in Edinburgh in 1798. See “Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,” The Royal Society of Edinburgh, July 2006, accessed December 6, 2024, https://web.archive.org/web/20160304074135/https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf.

10. Sir Walter Scott published St. Ronan’s Well in 1823, which lent credibility and fame to the spa town. See Walter Scott, St. Ronan’s Well (1823; repr. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1950).

11. As noted on the Traquair House website, accessed December 6, 2024, https://www.traquair.co.uk/history-of-traquair/.

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 son, William Henry Bose (1875–1957), London, 1934–1937;

Purchased from his sale, Sketches and Studies for Miniature Portraits by John Smart, Christie’s, London, February 15, 1937, lot 10, as Portrait of Lord Linton, Probably Charles Stuart, Later 8th and Last Earl of Traquair, by Smith, 1937 [1];

John H. Burls, New Malden, Surrey, by March 31, 1949 [2];

Purchased from his sale, Fine Portrait Miniatures, Sotheby’s, London, March 31, 1949, lot 46, as A Man, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1949–1958 [3];

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

Notes

[1] According to the lot description, “Portrait of Lord Linton, probably Charles Stuart [sic?], later 8th and last Earl of Traquair, in green coat and pink vest.” Smith bought lot 10 for £12.

[2] The 1949 sale was “The Property of J. H. Burls, Esq., New Malden, Surrey.” There was a John H. Burls of 11 Ancaster Crescent, New Malden, Surrey, listed in Leathergoods 103–04 (1968): 88.

[3] According to the lot description, “A Miniature of a Man, by John Smart, painted on paper in soft colours with great skill, head and gaze three-quarters dexter, pink vest and pale green tunic, his hair en queue, oval, 2 in.; mounted in pearl-bordered frame, 3 in. Probably one of his many works on paper drawn while at sea and from the original family collection. [See Illustration, Plate IV].”

An annotated sale catalogue is located at the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Miller Nichols Library and is likely annotated by Mr. or Mrs. Starr with a circled lot number and “Leggatt £32.” According to the attached price list, Leggatt bought lot 46 for £32. 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. The illustration of lot 46 is swapped with lot 47, which depicts another portrait of a man by Smart.

Hogg assisted Mrs. Starr in purchasing a group of miniatures at this sale, including two by Smart (Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1780 and this one. See group of letters between Martha Jane Starr and Betty Hogg, undated, box 18, folder 25, Martha Jane Starr Collection, LaBudde Special Collections, University of Missouri-Kansas City.

John Smart, Lord Linton (Possibly Charles Stuart, 8th [sic] Earl of Traquair), 1771, unknown dimensions, cited in Daphne Foskett, John Smart: The Man and His Miniatures (London: Cory, Adams, and Mackay, 1964), 70.

John Smart, Charles Stewart, 7th Earl Traquair, 1773, unknown dimensions, cited in Daphne Foskett, John Smart: The Man and His Miniatures (London: Cory, Adams, and Mackay, 1964), 74.

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 Charles Stewart, Lord Linton, later 7th Earl of Traquair.

Sketches and Studies for Miniature Portraits by John Smart (London: Christie’s, February 15, 1937), 4.

Catalogue of Fine Portrait Miniatures (London: Sotheby’s, March 31, 1949), 6, (repro.).

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 Lord Linton.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 145, p. 51, (repro.), as Lord Linton.