John Smart, Portrait of a Man, Possibly Mr. Gambier, 1774

Chicago:

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “John Smart, Portrait of a Man, Possibly Mr. Gambier, 1774,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1536.

MLA:

Marcereau DeGalan, Aimee. “John Smart, Portrait of a Man, Possibly Mr. Gambier, 1774,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1536.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

John Smart notoriously rendered his sitters as he saw them, warts—and in this instance, moles—and all. It is tempting to connect this finished ivory portrait of a man to a preparatory drawing in the Cleveland Museum of Art, recently identified as Mr. Gambier (Fig. 1),¹ through the discovery of an inscription found on the paper backing (Fig. 2). However, despite the strong resemblance between the Cleveland sitter and the figure in the present miniature, dated 1774, subtle differences preclude absolute certainty.² For instance, this sitter’s lips are rendered more fully, his eyes appear slightly wider set, and his eyebrows taper more sparsely at the ends. Notably, a mole at his right temple—a detail Smart likely would have recorded in any preparatory drawing—is absent in the Cleveland sketch. Yet, minor differences between preparatory sketches and finished miniatures are not uncommon, as evidenced in the Alexander J. Dallas preparatory sketch (ca. 1782) and its corresponding finished miniature (1782) in the Nelson-Atkins collection.

The present sitter has blue-green eyes, dark eyebrows tinged with blond at the ends, and powdered hair that he wears en queue. His vermilion coat has a narrow collar, under which he wears a white high-collared shirt with a frilled vest. Smart struggled with the precise size of the vest, reducing its overall width in the finished miniature, evident in a wider border of hatched lines that follow the contours of the cravat. Similarly, he shifted the edge of the sitter’s coat, reflected in the presence of two sketched-in circular buttons visible in the lower edge of the cravat.

While we do not know the identity of the sitter for certain, and he may well be Mr. Gambier, these nuanced discrepancies highlight Smart’s commitment to accuracy and the potential for ongoing discoveries in the attribution of his works.

Notes

1. It is interesting to consider whether the identity of the Nelson-Atkins sitter is James Gambier, 1st Baron Gambier (1756–1833), who would have been only eighteen years old in 1774, making him a little young for the present portrait. Gambier entered the Royal Navy in 1767 as a midshipman aboard the HMS Yarmouth, commanded by his uncle, Vice-Admiral James Gambier. Considering Smart’s ties to military men, it is possible their circles overlapped. For further reading about Gambier, see Frederic F. Thompson, “GAMBIER, JAMES, 1st Baron GAMBIER,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 6 (Toronto: University of Toronto/Université Laval, 1987), http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/gambier_james_6E.html.

2. Curators at the Cleveland Museum of Art place the date of the drawing to around 1776. See Cory Korkow and Jon L. Seydl, British Portrait Miniatures: The Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013), 182–83.

Frederick Noel Ashcroft (1878–1949) and Mrs. O. S. Ashcroft (née Isabel E. Lowe, b. ca. 1887), London, by May 7, 1946 [1];

Purchased from their sale, Fine Portrait Miniatures, Gold, Jewelled, and Enamel Boxes, and Objects of Vertu, Etc., Sotheby’s, London, May 7, 1946, lot 61, as A Miniature of a Young Man, by Hans E. Backer, London, 1946 [2];

Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 1965;

Their gift to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1965.

Notes

[1] The sale catalogue states, “The Celebrated Collection of Fine English and Continental Miniatures, Snuff Boxes, and Superb Enamel Miniatures (Formerly on loan at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1924–1939). The Property of F. N. Ashcroft, Esq. and Mrs. O. S. Ashcroft.” Mr. Ashcroft was a mineralogist, who donated over 6000 specimens of Swiss minerals to the Natural History Museum, London, between 1921 and 1938. See “Mr. F. N. Ashcroft,” Times (London), April 11, 1949, 7.

“O. S.” is probably Oscar Sheridan Ashcroft (ca. 1881–1944), who married Isabel E. Lowe (b. ca. 1887) in 1927 in London. See letters from Oscar S. Ashcroft in the archives at the National Gallery, London, https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/research/research-centre/archive/record/NGA4/1/52, which are probably related to a painting of Mrs. Williams, ca. 1790, by John Hoppner (1758–1810), which he donated to the National Gallery, London (now at Tate), https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hoppner-mrs-williams-n05582. See also “Deaths: Memorial Service, Mr. O. S. Ashcroft,” Times (London), May 3, 1944, 7.

[2] According to the lot description, “A Miniature of a Young Man, by John Smart, signed and dated, head and shoulder three-quarters sinister, gaze directed at spectator, fair hair en queue, in white cravat, frilled vest and rich red coat, 1 3/8 in.” According to a price list attached to the catalogue, Backer bought lot 61 for £55. Backer was a popular miniature dealer who sometimes bid for the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. This name comes up in Starr correspondence (see letter of October 11, 1955, University of Missouri-Kansas City archives, box 22, folder 9).

John Smart, Portrait of Mr. Gambier, ca. 1776, graphite and wash on laid paper, 2 5/16 x 1 1/8 in. (5.8 x 2.8 cm), The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1941.566.

John Smart—Miniaturist: 1741/2–1811, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, December 9, 1965–January 2, 1966, no cat., as Gentleman.

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 100, as Unknown Man.

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 Man, possibly Mr. Gambier.

Catalogue of Fine Portrait Miniatures, Gold, Jewelled, and Enamel Boxes, and Objects of Vertu, Etc. (London: Sotheby’s, May 7, 1946), 9, (repro.), as A Miniature of a Young Man.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 100, p. 38, (repro.), as Unknown Man.