John Smart, Portrait of Ralph Payne, later 1st Baron Lavington, 1768

Chicago:

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “John Smart, Portrait of Ralph Payne, later 1st Baron Lavington, 1768,” 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/10.37764/8322.5.1522.

MLA:

Marcereau DeGalan, Aimee. “John Smart, Portrait of Ralph Payne, later 1st Baron Lavington, 1768,” 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: 10.37764/8322.5.1522.

See the artist’s biography in volume 4.

John Smart’s 1768 portrait of Ralph Payne (1739–1807) captures the twenty-nine-year-old sugar plantation owner as a well-fed man, wearing his powdered hair en queue. He is dressed a light blue coat over a high-necked white shirt and a meticulously rendered lace cravat complemented by an ecru vest. A now-faded red sash, symbolizing the Order of the Bath, drapes over his right shoulder and extends to his left hip. Payne, who was elected to the highest rank of this order in 1771, also wears a silver Order of the Bath medallion over his left breast.

Ralph Payne was born in Basseterre, St. Kitts (Saint Christopher) island, in 1739, the son of Ralph Payne, chief justice of St. Kitts, and Alice Carlisle, heiress of the Antiguan planter Francis Carlisle.¹ Like many of the West Indian elite, Payne split his time between England and the Caribbean plantations from which he derived his wealth.² Educated at Christ’s Hospital school in London, Payne returned to Antigua in 1759, where he was elected to the House of Assembly and unanimously voted Speaker of the House.

In 1762, Payne embarked on a lengthy and luxurious Grand Tour of Europe. He married Françoise Lambertina Kölbel of Saxony, a close friend of Queen Charlotte, in 1767,³ and shortly thereafter he entered English politics. Payne served as Member of Parliament for Shaftesbury from 1768 to 1771, when he was made Knight of the Order of the Bath and appointed Governor-General of the Leeward Islands.⁴

Despite Payne’s initial success, his later years were marked by financial decline due to lavish spending and the fall in sugar profits after the American Revolution. He seceded from the Whig Club, allied with William Pitt, and was created Baron Lavington in 1795. He returned to Antigua as Governor-General in 1801, remaining there until his death in 1807. Payne’s legacy, marred by debt, left his widow impoverished, prompting the Antiguan assembly to vote her a pension out of respect and affection.

Smart’s miniature of Payne is a testament to the artist’s developing skill as an artist and to Payne’s prominent, albeit complex, role in eighteenth-century British colonial and political spheres.

Notes

1. Much of the biographical information on Ralph Payne comes from The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1790–1820, ed. R. Thorne, online edition (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 1986), https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/payne-sir-ralph-1739-1807; and W. P. Courtney and Andrew J. O’Shaughnessy, “Ralph Payne,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, January 3, 2008, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/21652.

2. The Archives at Yale University document land and slave ownership and Payne’s estate management in the West Indies. See “Ralph Payne, Baron Lavington Papers,” James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT, https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/resources/1033. In particular, see box 7, folders 221–24, which contain accounts and memoranda concerning the sugar mill in Irish Town (Basseterre), 1748–1755. See also box 6, folder 194 for the indenture between Jacob and Ann Martin and Ralph Payne, March 14, 1734 https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/archival_objects/379556; box 6, folder 203 for the indenture between William and Christopher Stoddard and Ralph Payne, June 16, 1742, https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/archival_objects/379566; box 6, folder 204 for the indenture between Christopher Stoddard and Ralph Payne, July 20, 1744, https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/archival_objects/379567.

3. There is a portrait of Payne’s wife by English miniaturist Henry Edridge (1768–1821); see Henry Edridge, Francoise Lambertine de Kolbel, Lady Payne and 1st baroness Lavington (1767–1807), ca. 1790, watercolor on ivory, 2 3/8 in. (6.2 cm) high, National Museum, Warsaw, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edridge_Lady_Payne.jpg.

4. As governor, Payne supported Lord North’s government against the North American colonists, keeping his islands free from revolutionary influence. He was the first governor in more than fifty years to visit every island under his jurisdiction, including Antigua, Barbuda, the British Virgin Islands, Montserrat, St. Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla, and Dominica, especially in the aftermath of the “Great Hurricane” of 1772. Payne was popular with plantation owners and patronized artist Thomas Hearne (1744–1817) to produce a series of watercolor drawings to commemorate his stewardship of the Leeward Islands. Hearne retained approximately 140 of the drawings, from which he produced twenty large watercolors for Payne between 1775 and 1776. One example is Thomas Hearne, Parham Hill House and Sugar Plantation, Antigua, 1779, pen and gray ink and watercolor on paper, 14.6 x 21.2 in (37.2 x 53.8 cm), British Museum, London, 1872,0511.531.

Probably commissioned by the sitter, Ralph Payne (1739–1807), 1st Baron Lavington, London and Antigua, 1768–1807 [1];

To his wife, Françoise Lambertina Christiana Charlotte Harriet Theresa (née Kölbel, ca. 1750–1830), Hampton Court Palace, England, 1807 [2];

Inherited by Payne’s half-brother, Sir William Payne-Gallwey (1759–1831), 1st Baronet, Yorkshire, by 1830–1831 [3];

By descent to his son, Sir William Payne-Gallwey (later William Payne-Frankland, 1807–1881), 2nd Baronet, Thirkleby, Yorkshire, 1831–1881;

By descent to his son, Sir Ralph William Frankland-Payne-Gallwey (1848–1916), 3rd Baronet, Yorkshire, 1881–1916 [4];

By descent to his nephew, Sir John Frankland-Payne-Gallwey (1889–1955), 4th Baronet, Thirkleby, Yorkshire, 1916–1951 [5];

Purchased from his sale, Gold Snuff Boxes, Watches, Musical Boxes, Objects of Vertu, and Fine Portrait Miniatures, Sotheby’s, London, June 21, 1951, lot 111, as Miniature of a Man, Called Ralph Payne, by Leggatt Brothers, London, probably on behalf of Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, 1951–1965 [6];

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

Notes

[1] Payne died childless and almost destitute in the Caribbean island of Antigua.

[2] After Payne’s death, Kölbel returned from Antigua to England and later died at Hampton Court Palace in 1830. This is probably how the miniature returned to England. Kölbel’s birth date has not been confirmed, but since she married in 1767, she might have been born as late as 1750.

[3] This provenance assumes that the miniature descended along with the baronetcy. The 4th Baronet is the first confirmed owner of the miniature in 1951.

[4] Sir Ralph William Frankland-Payne-Gallwey was an engineer, historian, ballistics expert, and artist. His only son died in action during the First World War.

[5] According the sales catalogue from 1951, the miniature was “Part of the Thirkleby Heirlooms (Sold by Order of Sir John Frankland Payne-Gallwey, Bt.).”

[6] The lot description says, “A Miniature of a Man, by John Smart, signed and dated 1768, called Ralph Payne, head and shoulders three-quarters dexter, gaze directed at spectator, powdered hair en queue, in white cravat, cream vest, and pale blue coat, gold slide frame, 1 1/2 in.”

An annotated sale catalogue is located at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Miller Nichols Library and was likely annotated by Mr. or Mrs. Starr with a circled lot number and “£65.” The reproduction of the miniature is also annotated with “£65,” which aligns with price list. Leggatt bought lot 111 for 65 pounds. 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 Ralph Payne.

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 94, as Ralph Payne.

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 Ralph Payne, later 1st Baron Lavington.

Catalogue of Gold Snuff Boxes, Watches, Musical Boxes, Objects of Vertu, and Fine Portrait Miniatures (London: Sotheby’s, June 21, 1951), 15.

Daphne Foskett, John Smart: The Man and His Miniatures (London: Cory, Adams, and Mackay, 1964), 72.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 94, p. 37, (repro.), as Ralph Payne.