id: 121288 accession number: 1942.1159 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1942.1159 updated: 2022-04-02 09:00:22.796000 Portrait of Sandford Peacocke, 1801. William Wood (British, c. 1768-1809). Watercolor on ivory in a gold frame with glazed reverse; framed: 8.6 x 7.3 cm (3 3/8 x 2 7/8 in.); sight: 8 x 6.7 cm (3 1/8 x 2 5/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Edward B. Greene Collection 1942.1159 title: Portrait of Sandford Peacocke title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1801 creation date earliest: 1801 creation date latest: 1801 current location: creditline: The Edward B. Greene Collection copyright: --- culture: England, early 19th century technique: watercolor on ivory in a gold frame with glazed reverse department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960 type: Portrait Miniature find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * William Wood (British, c. 1768-1809) - artist --- measurements: Framed: 8.6 x 7.3 cm (3 3/8 x 2 7/8 in.); Sight: 8 x 6.7 cm (3 1/8 x 2 5/8 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: inscribed on back: By Will. Wood of Cork Strt. / Lond. / Wood 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 * Main European Rotation (Gallery 202), The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (January 30, 2012 - July 23, 2012). [Verso on display] --- PROVENANCE (Leo Schidlof (1886-1966), Paris, France, sold to Edward B. Greene) date: -1929 footnotes: citations: Edward B. Greene (1878-1957), Cleveland, OH, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art date: 1929-1942 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1942- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Sandford Peacocke was married in 1801 and by 1802 was serving in the British military in Jamaica. It may have been for these occasions that the miniature was painted. digital description: wall description: William Wood worked primarily in London and exhibited over one hundred miniatures at the Royal Academy, where he began his training at the age of sixteen. His portraits of men in particular are regarded as highly refined and remarkably sensitive psychological studies. While Wood is known to have copied miniatures by Richard Cosway (1742–1821), George Engleheart (1752–1829), and John Smart (1741–1811), his distinctive style can be observed in the network of small dots and dashes of paint that follow the contours of a sitter’s face. In addition to portrait miniatures, Wood executed a number of eye miniatures and became increasingly interested in watercolor landscapes during the years preceding his death in 1810. He signed his miniatures on the paper backing, often with the sitter’s name or initials, Wood’s studio location, and the year. The fact that the artist signed his work on the back rather than the front has contributed to making his miniatures harder to identify immediately, an issue complicated by his aptitude for imitating a variety of styles employed by his fellow miniaturists.
Historians have rare insight into Wood’s working process due to the survival of his four-volume ledger that documents 1,211 miniatures painted by the artist between 1790 and 1808; the ledger is now in the collection of the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The entries are remarkably thorough, frequently including information about when a work was begun and completed, its size, the colors used and their durability, the sitter’s costume, and the price charged. From 1794 Wood also attached to the ledger entries tracings of many of the miniatures. Along with the careful notes he kept, these tracings would have facilitated the making of copies or revisions, which were evidently performed with some frequency when a sitter desired a change in hairstyle or costume; the promotion of an officer necessitated an alteration of his uniform; or a miniature’s pigments proved fugitive. Wood usually used numbers to refer to the colors applied in a work, but no key for them exists, and their identity often remains a mystery.
The entry for this portrait is characteristically complete and notes that the sitter was residing at Devonshire Street in London. It contains an attached tracing of the miniature and records that the portrait was begun on March 25, 1801, finished on April 11, and delivered July 29. Wood’s miniatures were often delivered days after they were completed, so it is noteworthy that this work was not relinquished by Wood for more than three months after its completion. Moreover, it was received not by the sitter or a family member but by a “General Stuart,” whose relationship to Peacocke is unknown. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Williamson, George Charles. The Miniature Collector; A Guide for the Amateur Collector of Portrait Miniatures. New York, NY: Dodd, Mead & Co, 1921. page number: Reproduced: p. 289 url: Cleveland Museum of Art. Portrait Miniatures: The Edward B. Greene Collection. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1951. page number: Reproduced: p. 32, no. 48, pl. XXII url: https://archive.org/details/PortraitMiniatures/page/n69 Schidlof, Leo R. The Miniature in Europe in the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries. Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1964. page number: vol. 2, p. 889 url: Foskett, Daphne. Miniatures: Dictionary and Guide. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors' Club, 1987. page number: pp. 384–87 url: 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. 206 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. 69, pp. 263-265 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1942.1159/1942.1159_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1942.1159/1942.1159_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1942.1159/1942.1159_full.tif