John Smart, Portrait of the Reverend Richard Sutton Yates, 1762

Chicago:

Maggie Keenan, “John Smart, Portrait of the Reverend Richard Sutton Yates, 1762,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1509.

MLA:

Keenan, Maggie. “John Smart, Portrait of the Reverend Richard Sutton Yates, 1762,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1509.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

Read more about this object at the associated catalogue entry.

Probably commissioned by the sitter, Rev. Richard Sutton Yates (1711–1789), and his wife, Elizabeth Maria Yates (née Hennand, 1730–1777), Westminster, England, 1762–1789;

By descent to their son, Rev. Richard William Yates (1761–1805), Warwickshire, 1789–1805;

By descent to his son, Captain Richard Barnardiston Yates (1801–1883), Warwickshire, 1805–1883;

Probably inherited by his wife, Mary Yates (née Pack, 1808–1898), Southfield House, Whatley, Somerset, 1883 [1];

By descent to their daughter, Ellen Flora Barnardiston Yates (1834–1922), Sussex, possibly by 1883–1922 [2];

By descent to her nephew, Vernon Bryan Crowther-Beynon (1865–1941), Somerset, 1922–at least 1926 [3];

Unknown owner, probably Crowther-Beynon’s wife, Mary Crowther-Beynon (née Giffard, 1857–1952), Somerset, by June 29, 1953 [4];

Purchased at the unknown owner’s sale, Objects of Art and Vertu, Miniatures, Glass Paperweights and Watches, Christie’s, London, June 29, 1953, lot 30, as Portraits of the Rev. Richard Sutton Yates and his Wife, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1953–1965 [5];

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

Notes

[1] Mary Yates (née Pack) may have given the pair of Smart portraits to her daughter Ellen Flora alongside her miniature by Sir William Charles Ross, Portrait of Miss Mary Pack (F71-29/4). The Ross miniature’s secondary inscription records that it was gifted to “my dear Flora” in “May 1883,” shortly after the death on April 30, 1883, of the sitter’s husband, Richard Barnardiston Yates. He left a substantial personal estate of £21,882 16s. 8d. to his widow, the former Miss Mary Pack. He died at Westfield in Beckenham, Kent, the home of their son-in-law and youngest daughter Gertrude Ann Barnardiston Crowther. Probate Registry; London, England; Calendar of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration made in the Probate Registries of the High Court of Justice in England, 615.

[2] Out of Mrs. Yates’s three children, Ellen Flora was the only one who remained unmarried in 1883 and still lived with her parents. She married the Reverend Frederick Hopkins on June 2, 1887. England, Select Marriages, 1538–1973, ref: item 5, p. 27; FHL film number 2147082.

[3] The portrait is reproduced in Basil Long, “John Smart, Miniature Painter,” Connoisseur 74 (April 1926): 197, which states that the miniature belongs to, “Mr. V. B. Crowther-Beynon.” The son of Gertrude Anne (née Barnardiston, 1838–1936) and Rev­er­end Sam­uel Bryan (1829–1910) Crow­ther-Bey­non, rec­tor of Bec­ken­ham, Kent, Vernon Bryan inherited the family miniatures after the death of his aunt on December 11, 1922. See probate dated February 8, 1923, Principal Probate Registry; London, England; Calendar of the Grants of Probate and Letters of Administration made in the Probate Registries of the High Court of Justice in England. The inheritors of the estate of Ellen Flora Barnardiston Hopkins are “Vernon Bryan Crowther-Beynon and Frederick Gardnor Hopkins esquires,” her nephew and stepson. Crowther-Beynon was a longtime member of the British Numismatic Society and the composer of the Christmas carol tune “Budapest.” J. Allen, “Obituaries: Mr. V. B. Crowther-Beynon,” British Numismatic Journal 24 (1942–1944): 57, https://www.britnumsoc.org/images/PDFs/24-57.png.

[4] According to the sales catalogue, “Different Properties” sold lots 19–45. Although Vernon Bryan Crowther-Beynon died in 1941, his wife Mary lived until 1952. It is possible she inherited the miniatures from her husband.

[5] The lot description states, “Portraits of the Rev. Richard Sutton Yates and his Wife, by John Smart, signed and dated 1761 and 1762, the former in black coat, vest and powdered wig, the latter in décolleté pink dress—oval, 1 1/4 in. high. Illustrated and described by Basil Long, ‘The Connoisseur,’ April, 1926.” The prior lot is Ross’s portrait of Mary Pack, who was Ellen Flora Barnardiston Yates’s mother (see note 1). This suggests that lots 29 and 30 were from the same collection and that this was the posthumous sale of Mary Crowther-Beynon.

According to Art Prices Current, 30, August 1952–July 1953 (London: Art Trade Press, 1953), Leggatt bought lot 30 for £42. 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.

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

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 87, as Mr. Yates.

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 the Reverend Richard Sutton Yates.

Basil Long, “John Smart, Miniature Painter,” Connoisseur 74 (April 1926): 197, (repro.), as Rev. Dr. Yates.

Daphne Foskett, John Smart: The Man and His Miniatures (New York: October House, 1964), 77, as The Rev. Dr. Yates.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 87, p. 36, (repro.), as Mr. Yates.

Emma Rutherford and Lawrence Hendra, John Smart: A Genius Magnified (London: Philip Mould, 2014), 108n4.