id: 120848 accession number: 1941.570 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1941.570 updated: 2023-03-07 15:13:45.432000 Portrait of M. de Viapre, c. 1776. John I Smart (British, 1741–1811). Graphite and wash on laid paper; framed: 7.5 x 6.6 cm (2 15/16 x 2 5/8 in.); unframed: 5.1 x 4.5 cm (2 x 1 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Edward B. Greene Collection 1941.570 title: Portrait of M. de Viapre title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1776 creation date earliest: 1770 creation date latest: 1780 current location: creditline: The Edward B. Greene Collection copyright: --- culture: England, 18th century technique: graphite and wash on laid paper department: Drawings collection: DR - British type: Portrait Miniature find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * John I Smart (British, 1741–1811) - artist John Smart is often regarded as the most skilled painter of portrait miniatures at the height of the art form’s popularity in late-eighteenth-century Britain. While the free style and white and blue color palette of his rival Richard Cosway (1742–1821) conjured up the glamour of fashionable society, Smart’s 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’s homogenized modishness.
Information is limited about Smart’s life and career, so much so that while G. C. Williamson had penned the definitive biographies of Cosway, George Engleheart (1752–1829), and Andrew Plimer (1763–1837) by 1905, it wasn’t until 1964 that a biography of Smart appeared. Little is known about the artist’s 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’s London school in St. Martin’s 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’s 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’s countenance through the use of delicate stippling, often featuring wrinkles, crow’s 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’s 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’s 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’s years in India, and two after his 1795 return to London. --- measurements: Framed: 7.5 x 6.6 cm (2 15/16 x 2 5/8 in.); Unframed: 5.1 x 4.5 cm (2 x 1 3/4 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: description: paper watermarks: inscriptions: inscription: Signature: none; inscribed on paper backing in graphite, upside down at upper left: 196; also on paper backing on slant at center, in graphite: Sir ?/John/Lester and 11; inscribed on back of drawing, under paper backing in graphite at bottom: Mr De [G?]iaf . . .; and in brown ink from top to bottom: Scarlet Coat . . . der Bottom [or possibly button]. . . green waistcoat . . . racelet & Spring [deli]vrd to Mr. Hall translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Intimate Images: Portrait Miniatures from Europe and America opening date: 1993-03-26T04:00:00 Intimate Images: Portrait Miniatures from Europe and America. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 26-October 17, 1993). title: Disembodied: Portrait Minatures and their Contemporary Relatives opening date: 2013-11-10T00:00:00 Disembodied: Portrait Minatures and their Contemporary Relatives. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (November 10, 2013-February 16, 2014). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Royal Amateur Art Society Exhibition of Miniatures, Moncorvo House, London, (March 5-8, 1904). --- PROVENANCE John Smart (1741-1811), by in heritance to his daughter by Sarah Midgeley, Sarah Smart date: c. 1776-1811 footnotes: citations: Sarah Smart (1781-1853), gifted to Mary Smirke date: 1811-c. 1853 footnotes: citations: Mary Smirke (d. 1853, Slough), by inheritance to her brother, Sydney Smirke date: c. 1853 footnotes: citations: Sydney Smirke (1798-1877) by inheritance to his daughter, Mrs. Lange date: 1853-77 footnotes: citations: Mrs. Lange (née Smirke, d. 1928), by inheritance to her brother, Sir Edward Smirke date: 1877-1928 footnotes: citations: Sir Edward Smirke date: -1928 footnotes: citations: Sale: Christie’s, London, December 10, 1928 (lot 8) date: December 10, 1928 footnotes: citations: Leo Schidlof (1886-1966), Paris, France, sold to Edward B. Greene date: 1928-1929 footnotes: citations: Edward B. Greene (1878-1957), Cleveland, OH gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art date: 1929-1941 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1941- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Sketches helped John Smart work out the particulars of a portrait before commencing the miniature on ivory; they were useful in the event that a duplicate might later be required. digital description: wall description: Although it is impossible to say if it was always part of the artist’s process to execute a preparatory sketch prior to painting each miniature, we do know that John Smart retained many hundreds of these sketches. A group of preparatory sketches—of which this portrait is one—descended through the Smirke family after Smart’s daughter Sarah gave a sketchbook containing preparatory portrait studies to her friend Mary Smirke, sister of the celebrated Victorian architect Sydney Smirke. This book was probably broken up around 1877 when it was divided between Sydney’s daughters Mary Jemmett and Mrs. Lange, whose portions were both sold at auction in 1928.
G. C. Williamson was the first to suggest that Smart’s sketches were well known and that they were preparatory studies for the painted miniatures. Williamson listed the names of sitters from the sketches known to him at the time, and they include Sir John Lester, the title formerly given to the sketch here. This designation was applied only to a paper backing that had been attached after the drawing had been removed from the sketchbook. There is no further evidence for this attribution, however. This sketch presents only the sitter’s head, with a slight suggestion of a high stock collar.
His head faces to the left, and his light hair is combed straight back with a flat curl above the right ear. He has gray eyes, and the background is unpainted. The work can be dated to around 1776 because of its size, which, when painted on ivory, would have been around 2 inches high. An inscription on the back of the drawing was discovered when the paper backing was removed in 1993. It is a fragment of a larger inscription, from which it has been cut. It is partly illegible but suggests that the work was intended to be set in a bracelet, and it gives some information about how the sitter was to appear in the finished miniature, including the description “scarlet coat . . . green waistcoat.”
This combination of colors might seem almost flashy, but it appears elsewhere in Smart’s work. These details seem to have been written in Smart’s hand, while the graphite inscription below—“Mr. De [?]”—was probably written later in another hand. Miniatures expert Arthur Jaffé remarked in 1948 that this portrait probably depicted John Lester of Poole, Dorset, who was knighted in 1802. However, this identity was based solely on the inscription on the later paper backing that Jaffé did not have the opportunity to see removed to reveal the inscription in Smart’s hand on the back of the drawing itself. There are no portraits of Sir John Lester known, and to this date, the finished ivory for which this preparatory sketch was presumably undertaken has not been discovered. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Williamson, George C. The Miniature Collector; A Guide for the Amateur Collector of Portrait Miniatures. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co, 1921. page number: p. 146 url: Christie, Manson & Woods. Ancient & Modern Pictures and Miniature Portraits. 1928. page number: Lot 8 url: Cleveland Museum of Art, and Edward Belden Greene. Portrait Miniatures ; The Edward B. Greene Collection. 1951. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 31, no. 38, pl. XII url: https://archive.org/details/PortraitMiniatures/page/n59 Foskett, Daphne. John Smart: the Man and His Miniatures. [London]: Cory, Adams & Mackay, 1964. page number: p. 70 url: Korkow, Cory, and Jon L. Seydl. British Portrait Miniatures: The Cleveland Museum of Art. 2013. page number: Cat. no. 42, pp. 179-181 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1941.570/1941.570_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1941.570/1941.570_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1941.570/1941.570_full.tif