John Smart, Portrait of Mr. Sharrock, Possibly Robert Sharrock, ca. 1777

Chicago:

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “John Smart, Portrait of Mr. Sharrock, Possibly Robert Sharrock, ca. 1777,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1572.

MLA:

Marcereau DeGalan, Aimee. “John Smart, Portrait of Mr. Sharrock, Possibly Robert Sharrock, ca. 1777,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1572.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

Identified only as “Mr. Sharrock” in a 1936 sale, the sitter in this portrait sketch may be Robert Sharrock, Esq., of the parish of Gately (1725-1803), who would have been around fifty-two at the time of this portrait. Daphne Foskett notes a miniature of Mr. Sharrock, dated 1777 (untraced) in her catalogue, thus suggesting a date for the present sketch, which presumably served as a preparatory work. Sharrock married twice, first to Catherine Dickens in 1748 and second to Susanna Norris of Norfolk on October 22, 1783.¹ Thus, it is unlikely that the present sketch or finished miniature served as a wedding portrait. A few years after this portrait, Sharrock leased a grand manor house of East Meon with his second wife, Susanna.² He was also nominated for the role of sheriff by the Lord of the Council at the Exchequer, though he was unsuccessful.³ Neither of Sharrock’s marriages produced children.

Sharrock was described as “Beloved by all his Friends and respected by all who knew him. True Piety, Beneficence, and unostentatious Charity marked his character through a long and well-spent life.”⁴ He passed away on May 6, 1803, aged seventy-seven. His wife, Susanna, outlived him by thirty-six years, passing away in 1839.

The sitter in this portrait appears in three-quarters view, with his head turned toward the right. He has large, blue-green eyes and ruddy cheeks, and his powdered hair is worn en queue. Consistent with Smart’s style, the portrait eschews flattery, showing the sitter with slack skin and prominent circles under his eyes. He wears an unfinished overcoat with what presumably would be a white stock tie. There are no notes on the verso indicating planned colors or the identity of the sitter, which Smart sometimes included.⁵

It is uncertain whether John Smart consistently created preparatory sketches for each miniature on ivory that he painted; 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 Mary 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).⁶ This miniature, which descended through Busteed, was acquired by the London dealer Thomas Agnew and likely purchased directly by the Starr Family. The finished miniature on ivory of an individual named Sharrock remains untraced.

Notes

1. Sharrock married Catherine Dickins (1725–1781) in 1748; Norfolk, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754–1938, ref. PD 407/4, Norfolk Record Office. He married Susanna Norris on either October 22, 1783, or October 22, 1784; see The Clough and Butler Archives: A Catalogue (Chichester: West Sussex County Council, 1966), 16; entry for October 24, 1783, p. 2, col. 3, “1783 Norfolk Chronicle Newspaper Selections,” transcribed by Janelle Penney, Foxearth and District Local History Society, accessed August 24, 2024, https://www.foxearth.org.uk/1783NorfolkChronicle.html; and Norfolk, England, Church of England Registers, ref. BT ANW 1783-84, Norfolk Record Office, which lists the marriage date as occurring a year later, on October 22, 1784.

2. According to Bereleigh House historians Michael Blakstad and Linda Redpath, “In 1783 and again in 1789, the Diocesan Lease Registers record that the ‘the Site of the Manor and Capital Messuage or Mansion House of East Meon with the Appurtenances . . . commonly called or known by the name of Courtfarm’ was leased by ‘Brownlow, Lord Bishop of Winchester’ to ‘Robert Sharrock of Gately in the County of Norfolk’ . . . Including ‘the Houses, Edifices Buildings Bans Stables Dovehouses Orchards Gardens Arable Lands Meadows Pastures Feedings Woods Underwoods Profits Commodities and Appurtenaces belonging thereto.’” Michael Blakstad and Linda Redpath, History of the Bereleigh Estate (June 15, 2019): 13, 37–38, https://www.eastmeonhistory.net/wp-content/uploads/Bereleigh-History.pdf.

3. “The names of those who were nominated for Sheriffs by the Lords of the Council, at the Exchequer, on the morrow of St Martin in the twenty-fourth year of the reign of King George the Third, and in the Year of our Lord 1783, for the undermentioned counties are, Norfolk. – Thomas DURRANT, of Scottow; William BURCH, of Great Cressingham; Robert SHARROCK, of Gately, Esqrs.” “1783 Norfolk Chronicle Newspaper Selections,” November 15, 1783, p. 2, col. 2, transcribed by Janelle Penney, Foxearth and District Local History Society, accessed September 2, 2024, https://www.foxearth.org.uk/1783NorfolkChronicle.html. Thomas Durrant was the successful candidate. See Burke’s Peerage, Baronetage, and Knightage, 107th edition, ed. Charles Mosley (Wilmington, DE: Burke’s Peerage, 2003), 1:1251.

4. This quote appears on a plaque in the Lady Chapel of All Saints Church, East Meon, Hampshire, commemorating the life of Robert Sharrock and his widow, Susanna. It is reproduced in Blakstad and Redpath, History of the Bereleigh Estate, 13.

5. 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.

6. Daphne Foskett reproduces the catalogue for these three sales in Daphne Foskett, John Smart: The Man and His Miniatures (London: Cory, Adams, and Mackay, 1964), 78–90. See also Sketches and Studies for Miniature Portraits by John Smart, Christie’s, London, December 17, 1936, lot 14, as “Mr. Sharrock.”

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;

Purchased at her sale, Sketches and Studies for Miniature Portraits by John Smart, Christie’s, London, December 17, 1936, lot 14, as Mr. Sharrock, by Thomas Agnew, 1936 [1];

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] According to the lot description, “Portrait of Mr. Kingsley, in magenta coat; Portrait of Mr. Milner; and Portrait of Mr. Sharrock.” According to Art Prices Current 16 (1936–37), Agnew bought lot 14 for £21.

John Smart, Mr. Sharrock, 1777, dimensions unknown, cited in Daphne Foskett, John Smart: The Man and His Miniatures (London: Cory, Adams, and Mackay, 1964), 73.

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. Sharrock, Possibly Robert Sharrock.

Sketches and Studies for Miniature Portraits by John Smart (London: Christie’s, December 17, 1936), lot 14, as Mr. Sharrock.

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. Sharrock (sketch).

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 147, p. 52, (repro.), as Mr. Sharrock.