id: 120850 accession number: 1941.572 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1941.572 updated: 2023-03-07 15:13:45.460000 Portrait of Charlotte Bertie, née Warren, 4th Countess of Abingdon, 1778. John I Smart (British, 1741–1811). Graphite and wash on laid paper; sheet: 8.5 x 7.5 cm (3 3/8 x 2 15/16 in.); unframed: 5.8 x 4.8 cm (2 5/16 x 1 7/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Edward B. Greene Collection 1941.572 title: Portrait of Charlotte Bertie, née Warren, 4th Countess of Abingdon title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1778 creation date earliest: 1778 creation date latest: 1778 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: Sheet: 8.5 x 7.5 cm (3 3/8 x 2 15/16 in.); Unframed: 5.8 x 4.8 cm (2 5/16 x 1 7/8 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: description: card watermarks: inscriptions: inscription: inscribed on verso of paper to top in brown ink: [L]ady Abingto[n] 1778; inscribed at bottom of verso in graphite: J Smart / Lady Abington 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 10?) 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, and 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 included Lady Abingdon. Here, Lady Abingdon’s head and shoulders face right. Her brown hair is dressed high on her head, and a strand of pearls is woven through the left side of her coiffure. A veil descends from the top of her head, past her shoulders. She has gray eyes. Compared to his contemporaries George Engleheart (1752–1829) and Andrew Plimer (1763–1837), whose female sitters were often painted in similar simple white gowns, Smart often lavished more attention on the costumes in his portraits of women, whose dresses incorporated colored silks, printed fabrics, and luxury trimmings like lace and fur. Thus, Lady Abingdon wears a low-necked, pink dress trimmed with ermine and strands of pearls. The background is unpainted. The removal of the paper backing revealed an inscription in brown ink, written in Smart’s hand, dating the work and verifying the identity of the sitter as Lady Abingdon.
Lady Abingdon (d. 1799) was the daughter of Admiral Sir Peter Warren, K.B., M.P. She married Willoughby Bertie, 4th Earl of Abingdon, in 1768. They had six children, two of whom died very young. It is for Lady Abingdon that Abingdon Square in New York City is named, courtesy of her father, who had purchased 300 acres of land in Greenwich Village in 1744. Her husband’s famous protestations against the British government’s treatment of America during the War for Independence ensured that even in 1794, when the New York city council was rooting out British names from public
streets and spaces, the name of Abingdon Square was retained.
The family was painted by some of the great artists of the day, including Nathaniel Dance-Holland (1735–1811) and John Francis Rigaud (1742–1810). The formal portrait of 1769 by Dance-Holland, in which Lady Abingdon is depicted in coronation robes and holding her peeress’s coronet, conveys the pomp and tradition expected from a marriage portrait of a powerful peer. But even Smart’s miniature portrait sketch of almost a decade later maintains some of this grandeur, depicting the countess with aristocratic bearing and wearing the rich ermine-trimmed gown to which her station entitled her. A miniature on ivory corresponds to this preparatory sketch, although it is dated 1777, suggesting that the sketch may have been executed the following year in preparation for a second version of the portrait. There are slight differences in the details of the dress, particularly the left sleeve—which has been lengthened—and a slight reduction in pearl and ermine trim. The portrait on ivory also has somewhat more softness in the facial features, but many of the details, including the veil and the lock of hair on the right shoulder, are extremely similar. The miniature’s current location is unknown. --- 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 10? url: Comstack, Helen. “The Edward B. Greene Collection of Miniatures.” Connoisseur 128 (October 1951). page number: p. 130 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. 40, pl. XIII 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. 61 url: Korkow, Cory, and Jon L. Seydl. British Portrait Miniatures: The Cleveland Museum of Art. 2013. page number: Cat. no. 45, pp. 186-188 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1941.572/1941.572_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1941.572/1941.572_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1941.572/1941.572_full.tif