{
"data": {
"id": 119033,
"accession_number": "1940.1219",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Portrait of a Man, Possibly Sir Soulden Lawrence, 1770. John I Smart (British, 1741\u20131811). Watercolor on ivory in an amalgam frame; framed: 4.4 x 3.8 cm (1 3/4 x 1 1/2 in.); unframed: 3.2 x 3.1 cm (1 1/4 x 1 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Edward B. Greene Collection, 1940.1219",
"current_location": "203B British Painting and Decorative Arts",
"title": "Portrait of a Man, Possibly Sir Soulden Lawrence",
"creation_date": "1770",
"creation_date_earliest": 1770,
"creation_date_latest": 1770,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"England, 18th century"
],
"technique": "watercolor on ivory in an amalgam frame",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "European Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "P - British before 1800",
"type": "Portrait Miniature",
"measurements": "Framed: 4.4 x 3.8 cm (1 3/4 x 1 1/2 in.); Unframed: 3.2 x 3.1 cm (1 1/4 x 1 1/4 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"framed": {
"height": 0.044,
"height_inch": 1,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.75,
"width": 0.038,
"width_inch": 1,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.5
},
"unframed": {
"height": 0.032,
"height_inch": 1,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.25,
"width": 0.031,
"width_inch": 1,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.25
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "signed left: J.S. / 177[9]. [disagreement over whether this last number is a 9,8 or 0]",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 335553,
"title": "John Smart - Miniaturist",
"description": "John Smart - Miniaturist. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO (organizer) (December 9-31, 1965).",
"opening_date": "1965-12-09T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 311503,
"title": "Intimate Images: Portrait Miniatures from Europe and America",
"description": "Intimate Images: Portrait Miniatures from Europe and America. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 26-October 17, 1993).",
"opening_date": "1993-03-26T04:00:00"
},
{
"id": 202388,
"title": "Disembodied: Portrait Minatures and their Contemporary Relatives",
"description": "Disembodied: Portrait Minatures and their Contemporary Relatives. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 10, 2013-February 16, 2014).",
"opening_date": "2013-11-10T00:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"description": "Main European Rotation (Gallery 202), The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (January 30, 2012 - July 23, 2012). [Verso on display].",
"opening_date": "2012-01-30T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Friedrich Neuberg (d. 1985), Litomerice, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": null,
"sortorder": null
},
{
"description": "(M.F. Neuberg Sale: Hotel Drouot, Paris, France, March 27, 1939, Lot 90).",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "March 27, 1939",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "(Leo Schidlof (1886-1966), Paris, France, sold to Edward B. Greene).",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1939",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "Edward B. Greene (1878-1957), Cleveland, OH, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1939-1940",
"sortorder": 4
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1940-",
"sortorder": 5
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "This miniature is signed by the artist John Smart, who used his initials JS.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "This portrait is an excellent example of John Smart\u2019s early work. The unknown sitter has blue eyes and wears a light blue coat embroidered in gold, a white waistcoat, and a high white collar with a lace frill down the front. He also dons a powdered wig\u2014still fashionable in 1770. While the sitter\u2019s cheeks are flushed with a delicate pink, his complexion does not have the ruddy quality so often seen in Smart\u2019s later work. The intricate gold embroidery on the sitter\u2019s jacket exemplifies the ornamentation lavished upon menswear during the early and mid-eighteenth century\u2014a male fashion trend replaced two decades later by one that stressed greater sobriety. The date on the miniature is difficult to decipher but probably reads 1770. Not only is the date in keeping with its size, but the number 0 is elevated, as is the case in another Smart miniature in the Cleveland Museum of Art\u2019s collection, Portrait of Constantine Phipps, also dated 1770. Furthermore, as early as 1948, Smart expert Arthur Jaff\u00e9 was casting doubt that the portrait could have been painted at any date later than 1773 because of the nature of the costume.
The miniature is housed in a period gold frame with a pin on the back, indicating that it was worn as jewelry. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, miniatures were commonly worn, especially by women, mounted on rings, bracelets, necklaces, or, in this case, a brooch. The back features a coat of arms placed in a cartouche. The formation of the arms is that of a cross raguly gules, or red indented cross. The color red is conveyed in engraving through vertical perpendicular lines. The cartouche is surmounted by what appear to be either four broken columns or a crenellated wall, terminating in a sky or bits of foliage. The cross raguly gules, as seen on the back of the frame, is the basic element of the coat of arms of the Lawrence family in England, though there are numerous modifications and additions among the various branches of the family.
A possible candidate for the identity of this sitter is Sir Soulden Lawrence (1751\u20131814), who graduated from St. John\u2019s College, Cambridge, in 1771, embarked on a legal career, and became justice of the Court of King\u2019s Bench in 1794. His book collection was bequeathed to St. John\u2019s library, wherein can be seen the bookplate containing his arms. The presence of this coat of arms on Soulden Lawrence\u2019s bookplate indicates that he may have been inclined to have the device inscribed on the frame of a portrait miniature as well. A portrait of Lawrence was painted by John Hoppner (1758\u20131810) around 1804. Over three decades would have separated the Smart and the Hoppner portraits, which could account for differences in the gentleman\u2019s appearance. Although the resemblance between the two portraits is not immediately striking, there are similarities in the softness of the eyes, the delicacy of the skin tone, and the expression of the mouth.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q80014252"
],
"internet_archive": [
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"citations": [
{
"citation": "Ho\u0302tel Drouot, and R. G. Boisgirard. Tableaux et aquarelles ... miniatures ... objets de vitrine du XVe au XIXe sie\u0300cle. 1939.",
"page_number": "lot 90, pl. III",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art. Portrait Miniatures; The Edward B. Greene Collection. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1951.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 30, no. 33; Reproduced: pl. VIII, no. 33",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/PortraitMiniatures/page/n55"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 467",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1958/page/n85"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 154",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1966/page/n178"
},
{
"citation": "Smart, John, and Rose E. Taggart. John Smart - Miniaturist, 1741/42-1811: Starr Collection of Consecutively Dated Miniatures and Special Loan Exhibition : William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, Decmeber 9, 1965 to January 2, 1966. Kansas City, Mo: The Gallery, 1966.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: cat. no. 13",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 154",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n178"
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 194",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n214"
},
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, and Alan Chong. European & American Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art: A Summary Catalogue. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993.",
"page_number": "",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Korkow, Cory, and Dario Robleto. Disembodied: Portrait Miniatures and Their Contemporary Relatives. 2013.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 82",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Korkow, Cory, and Jon L. Seydl. British Portrait Miniatures: The Cleveland Museum of Art. 2013.",
"page_number": "Cat. no. 29, pp. 143-145",
"url": ""
}
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"creditline": "The Edward B. Greene Collection",
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{
"id": 3691,
"description": "John I Smart (British, 1741\u20131811)",
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"role": "artist",
"biography": "John Smart is often regarded as the most skilled painter of portrait miniatures at the height of the art form\u2019s popularity in late-eighteenth-century Britain. While the free style and white and blue color palette of his rival Richard Cosway (1742\u20131821) conjured up the glamour of fashionable society, Smart\u2019s attention to minute detail, saturated colors, and frank conveyance of likeness and character attracted a different type of clientele, one who prized these qualities
above Cosway\u2019s homogenized modishness.
Information is limited about Smart\u2019s life and career, so much so that while G. C. Williamson had penned the definitive biographies of Cosway, George Engleheart (1752\u20131829), and Andrew Plimer (1763\u20131837) by 1905, it wasn\u2019t until 1964 that a biography of Smart appeared. Little is known about the artist\u2019s early training beyond evidence suggesting that before the age of fourteen, he was winning prizes from the Society of Arts for his drawings and, like Cosway, was an apprentice in William Shipley\u2019s London school in St. Martin\u2019s Lane. Smart exhibited for several years as an active member and eventually president of the Society of Artists of Great Britain before seeking his fortune as a miniature painter in India, where he lived between 1785 and 1795, hoping to secure patronage from wealthy princes and those
involved in England\u2019s growing trade market. Works from this period are signed with the initial I, signifying India.
Unlike Cosway, an ostentatious showman, Smart lived and worked quietly, settling in London after his return from India and exhibiting at the Royal Academy. His style, which changed little throughout his career, is characterized by a meticulous description of a sitter\u2019s countenance through the use of delicate stippling, often featuring wrinkles, crow\u2019s feet around the eyes, and a slightly upturned mouth that suggests joviality. Unlike his contemporaries Cosway, Engleheart, and Plimer, whose backgrounds most often featured blue and white cloudy skies, Smart painted his backgrounds in varying shades of browns, greens, and grays. The size of the artist\u2019s miniatures expanded over time, measuring around 11/ 2 inches until about 1775, then 2 inches until around 1790, and 3 inches thereafter. Though
highly sought after in his time, Smart\u2019s work grew even more popular among collectors following his death. The Cleveland Museum of Art has a total of twenty-three portraits by Smart: seven gentlemen sitters painted on ivory and sixteen preparatory drawings of men and women. Of the seven miniatures on ivory, two date from 1770, three from
Smart\u2019s years in India, and two after his 1795 return to London.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1741",
"death_year": "1811",
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],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1940-12-30T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1770,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1770",
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"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [
"Portrait of a Man",
"Young Man in Blue"
],
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"updated_at": "2026-05-29 06:09:24.167000"
}
}