John Smart, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1780

Chicago:

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “John Smart, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1780,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1614.

MLA:

Marcereau DeGalan, Aimee. “John Smart, Portrait of a Woman, ca. 1780,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1614.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

In this preparatory sketch from around 1780, John Smart captures a youthful and blushing woman of high fashion. Her head and shoulders face left, and her towering, powdered hairstyle is dressed high on her head, reflecting the fashion of the period. A long curl snakes around her right shoulder and extends down to her décoletté neckline, elongating her neck. With soft, limpid brown eyes, she gazes directly at the viewer, exuding poise and beauty.

At some point in the sketch’s early history, art historian Arthur Jaffé inscribed a note on its cardboard backing, suggesting that the sitter might resemble the Hon. Frances Ingram-Shepherd (1761–1841).¹ In 1780, Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) painted her at the age of nineteen (Fig. 1), the same year she made her ill-fated marriage to Lord William Gordon.² While there is a certain likeness between this sketch and Reynolds’s portrait of Lady William Gordon, the homogeneity of beauty standards at the time makes it difficult to confidently assert her identity without further evidence.

As with many of Smart’s preparatory sketches, this sketch remained in his family for generations after his death. While it is uncertain whether John Smart consistently created preparatory sketches for each miniature on ivory that he painted, a substantial number of them 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).³ This sketch, which descended through William Henry Bose, was acquired by the Starr Family by 1958. To date, no finished miniature on ivory resembling the sitter in this sketch has been identified.⁴

Notes

1. Ingram-Shepherd (sometimes spelled Shepheard) was the daughter of Charles Ingram, 9th Viscount Irvine, and Frances Shepherd. She married Lord William Gordon, son of Cosmo George Gordon, 3rd Duke of Gordon, and Lady Catherine Gordon on March 1, 1781. Charles Mosley, ed., Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage, 107th edition (Wilmington, DE: Burke’s Peerage [Genealogical Books], 2003), 2:2012.

2. Lord William Gordon, the second son of the 3rd Duke of Gordon, had a scandalous affair in the 1760s with Lady Sarah Bunbury, resulting in a daughter and an elopement. He soon abandoned Lady Bunbury, leading to her public disgrace and a divorce from her husband in 1776. The affair ruined both their social standings and ended William’s military and political prospects. Lord William Gordon later married the Hon. Frances Ingram-Shepherd, with whom he had one daughter, Frances Gordon, who died unmarried. While married, Lord William fathered an illegitimate son, William Conway Gordon, whom he provided for and ensured received an education. “Lord William Gordon (1744–1823),” in The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1754–1790, ed. Lewis Namier and John Brooke (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/member/gordon-william-1744-1823.

3. Daphne Foskett reproduces the catalogues for these three sales in John Smart: The Man and His Miniatures (London: Cory, Adams, and Mackay, 1964), 78–90.

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

Sold at his sale, Sketches and Studies for Miniature Portraits by John Smart, Christie’s, London, February 15, 1937, lot 23, as Portrait of a Lady;

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.

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 a Woman.

Sketches and Studies for Miniature Portraits by John Smart (London: Christie’s, February 15, 1937), 5.

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 Portrait of a Lady (sketch).

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 146, p. 51, (repro.), as Unknown Lady.