id: 121287 accession number: 1942.1157 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1942.1157 updated: 2022-04-02 09:00:22.547000 Portrait of an Officer, c. 1794. John I Smart (British, 1741-1811). Watercolor on ivory in a contemporary gold frame with plain back; framed: 6.5 x 5.4 cm (2 9/16 x 2 1/8 in.); unframed: 6.4 x 5.4 cm (2 1/2 x 2 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Edward B. Greene Collection 1942.1157 title: Portrait of an Officer title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1794 creation date earliest: 1793 creation date latest: 1795 current location: creditline: The Edward B. Greene Collection copyright: --- culture: England, late 18th century technique: watercolor on ivory in a contemporary gold frame with plain back department: European Painting and Sculpture collection: P - British before 1800 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: 6.5 x 5.4 cm (2 9/16 x 2 1/8 in.); Unframed: 6.4 x 5.4 cm (2 1/2 x 2 1/8 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: John Smart - Miniaturist opening date: 1965-12-09T05:00:00 John Smart - Miniaturist. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO (organizer) (December 9-31, 1965). 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 --- PROVENANCE (Leo Schidlof (1886-1966), Paris, France, sold to Edward B. Greene). date: -1928 footnotes: citations: Edward B. Greene (1878-1957), Cleveland, OH, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art date: 1928-1942 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1942- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: The uniform worn by this unknown sitter identifies him as an Indian militia officer. digital description: wall description: The unknown sitter has powdered hair, brown eyes, a ruddy complexion, and facial hair stubble. He wears a red military coat with black facings, gold buttons, gold epaulet, a white waistcoat, and frilled cravat. His uniform identifies him as an Indian militia officer, though his precise rank cannot be determined since his left shoulder is not visible. The background is mottled gray. The red of the officer’s coat is also painted in red on the back of the ivory support. Back-painting was a process employed by miniaturists to heighten the brilliancy of certain colors, especially in a sitter’s costume and on the face to enhance bright eyes or pink lips and cheeks. John Smart did not back-paint all of his works, using the technique selectively in portraits in which he wished to achieve a particularly bright color that would show through the back due to the translucency of the thin ivory. The miniature is housed in a contemporary gold frame.
This portrait is unsigned and undated, which was an unusual practice for Smart and may be explained by the existence of a variant of this portrait signed and dated “JS / 1794 / I.” Daphne Foskett reproduces the signed work in her 1987 catalogue and refers to the Cleveland miniature as a “replica.” The Cleveland portrait may have been a second version by Smart, who sometimes did not sign even the copies he executed himself. This variant is probably the one referred to by Arthur Jaffé as being formerly in the Warneck collection and sold in Paris on April 11, 1924, by the dealer Leo
Schidlof. By 1976 it was in the Asprey collection in London. The miniature was then sold at auction at Christie’s, London, on March 17, 1987 (lot 141) and purchased by David Berkeley, Channel Islands. The sales catalogue identifies the gentleman as an officer of the 5th Madras Native Infantry; however, when Berkeley contacted the National Army Museum in London regarding the identification of the uniform, he was told that this attribution was incorrect, as that regiment had black facing colors only after 1798. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Cleveland Museum of Art. Portrait Miniatures: The Edward B. Greene Collection. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1951. page number: Reproduced: p. 30, no. 36, pl. X url: https://archive.org/details/PortraitMiniatures/page/n57 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. 31 url: Foskett, Daphne. Miniatures: Dictionary and Guide. Woodbridge, Suffolk, United Kingdom: Antique Collectors' Club, 1987. page number: P)l. 31A [for variant of this miniature] url: Korkow, Cory, and Dario Robleto. Disembodied: Portrait Miniatures and Their Contemporary Relatives. 2013. page number: Mentioned: p.81 url: Korkow, Cory, and Jon L. Seydl. British Portrait Miniatures: The Cleveland Museum of Art. 2013. page number: Cat. no. 32, pp. 150-152 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1942.1157/1942.1157_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1942.1157/1942.1157_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1942.1157/1942.1157_full.tif