id: 128815 accession number: 1951.437 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1951.437 updated: 2022-04-02 09:00:28.519000 Portrait of Constantine Phipps, 1770. John I Smart (British, 1741-1811). Watercolor on ivory in a later gold and woven hair bracelet; framed: 4.6 x 4.1 cm (1 13/16 x 1 5/8 in.); unframed: 3.8 x 3.2 cm (1 1/2 x 1 1/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Edward B. Greene Collection 1951.437 title: Portrait of Constantine Phipps title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1770 creation date earliest: 1770 creation date latest: 1770 current location: creditline: The Edward B. Greene Collection copyright: --- culture: England, 18th century technique: watercolor on ivory in a later gold and woven hair bracelet 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: 4.6 x 4.1 cm (1 13/16 x 1 5/8 in.); Unframed: 3.8 x 3.2 cm (1 1/2 x 1 1/4 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: signed lower left: J.S. / 1770. 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 Gallery Rotation (Gallery 202), The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (January 5, 2009 - April 6, 2009). --- PROVENANCE Constantine Phipps, commissioned from the artist, by inheritance, passed within the Phipps family, to his great-granddaughter Elizabeth Clarissa Emilie Toker date: 1770-1838 footnotes: citations: Elizabeth Clarissa Emilie Toker date: 1838 footnotes: citations: Edward B. Greene (1878-1957), Cleveland, OH, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art date: Before 1951-1951 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1951- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: This miniature is mounted to a bracelet that was made at least 50 years later. digital description: wall description: John Smart painted the British gentleman Constantine Phipps (1746–1797) at the age of twenty-four, executing this portrait in 1770, the year following the death of the sitter’s father, Constantine Phipps (1710?–1769), and preceding his marriage to Elizabeth Tierney (d. 1832). Phipps the younger was the second son of a landowner and lived throughout England and France. In 1788 he moved his family to Caen, Normandy, hoping to educate his ten (eventually thirteen) children more economically. Phipps and his wife returned to England in 1792 to attend their daughter’s wedding. The escalating conflict between France and England prevented Phipps from returning to France where he had left eight children behind. Unfortunately, he did not see them before his death five years later.
The portrait represents Phipps’s nearly full face. He has light brown eyes and natural brown hair worn en queue. He wears a green coat with a small collar, a white waistcoat embroidered with gold, and a high, white stock collar. Phipps is depicted against an olive-gray background. This early work by Smart already exhibits hallmarks of the artist’s style, such as the plain, gray background, the sitter’s colorful clothing, and his expressive eyes and slightly upturned mouth, which suggest that Phipps was a self-assured man with a sense of humor. The small format is also characteristic of the first decade of Smart’s career.
This miniature is mounted in an elaborately carved gold frame on a bracelet made of gold and woven light brown human hair. The bracelet was executed later than the miniature and is in the style of the 1830s or 1840s. The inscription on the clasp reads “E. C. E. T. / Nov.r 29th 1838, aged 7” and may indicate that this bracelet was given to Constantine’s great-granddaughter Elizabeth Clarissa Emilie Toker (1831–1888) on her seventh birthday possibly by her mother or grandmother.
There is a variant of this work in the Phipps collection in London. Painted in 1771, this miniature descended from Colonel Pownoll Phipps, the seventh child of Constantine Phipps, to John Constantine Phipps. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Cleveland Museum of Art, and Edward Belden Greene. Portrait Miniatures ; The Edward B. Greene Collection. 1951. page number: p. 30, no. 33, pl. VIII url: Burchfield, Louise H. “Portrait Miniatures.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 41, no. 2 (1954). page number: p. 22 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25141936 Foskett, Daphne. John Smart: the Man and His Miniatures. [London]: Cory, Adams & Mackay, 1964. page number: p. 72 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. 304 url: Korkow, Cory, and Dario Robleto. Disembodied: Portrait Miniatures and Their Contemporary Relatives. 2013. page number: Mentioned: p.82 url: Korkow, Cory, and Jon L. Seydl. British Portrait Miniatures: The Cleveland Museum of Art. 2013. page number: Cat. no. 28, pp. 140-142 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1951.437/1951.437_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1951.437/1951.437_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1951.437/1951.437_full.tif