{
"data": {
"id": 120831,
"accession_number": "1941.556",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Portrait of a Man, c. 1800. George Engleheart (British, 1752\u20131829). Watercolor on ivory, in a later gold, enamel, and diamond frame; framed: 8.7 x 7.4 cm (3 7/16 x 2 15/16 in.); unframed: 7.7 x 6.2 cm (3 1/16 x 2 7/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Edward B. Greene Collection, 1941.556",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Portrait of a Man",
"creation_date": "c. 1800",
"creation_date_earliest": 1795,
"creation_date_latest": 1805,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"England, 18th century"
],
"technique": "watercolor on ivory, in a later gold, enamel, and diamond frame",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Modern European Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960",
"type": "Portrait Miniature",
"measurements": "Framed: 8.7 x 7.4 cm (3 7/16 x 2 15/16 in.); Unframed: 7.7 x 6.2 cm (3 1/16 x 2 7/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"framed": {
"height": 0.087,
"height_inch": 3,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.4375,
"width": 0.074,
"width_inch": 2,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.9375
},
"unframed": {
"height": 0.077,
"height_inch": 3,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0625,
"width": 0.062,
"width_inch": 2,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.4375
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 335533,
"title": "Four Centuries of Miniature Painting",
"description": "Four Centuries of Miniature Painting. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (January 18-March 19, 1950).",
"opening_date": "1950-01-18T05:00:00"
},
{
"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 Gallery Rotation (Gallery 202) The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (January 5, 2009 - April 6, 2009).",
"opening_date": "2009-01-05T00:00:00"
}
]
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Benjamin Nathan, London, England",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "Before 1930",
"sortorder": null
},
{
"description": "(Leo Schidlof (1886-1966), Paris, France)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "By 1930",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "Edward B. Greene (1878-1957), Cleveland, OH, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1930-1941",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1941-",
"sortorder": 4
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "Braided brown hair is glazed on the back of this miniature.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "This work dates to around 1800, when George Engleheart was in the mature stage of his career. The sitter wears a blue coat with brass buttons over a yellow waistcoat and high white collar with ruffles. The initials W.A. on the back of the case probably identify the sitter, but Engleheart\u2019s fee book records only his sitter\u2019s surname in most instances, so it is impossible to determine if this portrait is among those numerous sitters with an A surname. The meticulous construction of the elaborate case and the nature of its components\u2014gold, enamel, and diamonds\u2014indicates that it is probably original.
The gold initials on the bordered, blue enamel back are encircled with braided brown hair. The twenty-four brilliant-cut diamonds are genuine, though paste diamonds were becoming more widely available during this period. When this work entered Cleveland\u2019s collection in the 1940s, the cost of reproducing the frame was noted in curatorial records to be 20,000 to 25,000 francs, according to the dealer Leo Schidlof. It is the only miniature from the Greene collection whose setting was evaluated in such a way.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q80016481"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1941.556-portrait-of-a-man"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art. Portrait Miniatures; The Edward B. Greene Collection. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1951.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 27, no. 12; reproduced: pl. XVIII",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/PortraitMiniatures/page/n65"
},
{
"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": "p. 286",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Korkow, Cory, and Dario Robleto. Disembodied: Portrait Miniatures and Their Contemporary Relatives. 2013.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p.86",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Korkow, Cory, and Jon L. Seydl. British Portrait Miniatures: The Cleveland Museum of Art. 2013.",
"page_number": "Cat. no. 62, pp. 242-243",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1941.556",
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"print": {
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"date_created": "2008-10-07T18:22:26",
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],
"creditline": "The Edward B. Greene Collection",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 120831,
"creators": [
{
"id": 3709,
"description": "George Engleheart (British, 1752\u20131829)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "George Engleheart was born in Kew to a German plaster modeler. Among his teachers were George Barret (1728/32\u2013
1784) and Joshua Reynolds (1723\u20131792), whose work Engleheart copied in miniature. One of Richard Cosway\u2019s (1742\u20131821) greatest rivals and stylistically the closest to his work, Engleheart worked primarily in London until retiring in 1813, after which date he painted few miniatures. Engleheart\u2019s miniatures have a more linear, labored manner than those of Cosway, whose painterly works were often left unfinished near the edges. Like Cosway, Engleheart often placed
his figures against a background of sky. But the firm draftsmanship (especially in the hair), heavy brows, and the use of grays and blacks for shadows are distinctive to Engleheart, who was celebrated for his ability to capture a sitter\u2019s likeness closely. Engleheart\u2019s productivity is documented by the fee book he kept between 1775 and 1813, which records an astounding total of 4,853 miniatures. He exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1773 and 1812, and was miniature painter to King George III from 1789. There are three fine Engleheart miniatures in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, all portraits of gentlemen dating near the turn of the century.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1752",
"death_year": "1829",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1941-12-05T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1795,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "c. 1800",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [
"Man in Blue Coat and Yellow Waistcoat"
],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-29 06:13:43.717000"
}
}