id: 160113 accession number: 1997.77 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1997.77 updated: Portrait of General Keith MacAlister, c. 1800–1810. John I Smart (British, 1741–1811). Watercolor and graphite, heightened with traces of white gouache, on paper; sheet: 17.4 x 14 cm (6 7/8 x 5 1/2 in.); image: 13.2 x 11.4 cm (5 3/16 x 4 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Mrs. A. Dean Perry 1997.77 title: Portrait of General Keith MacAlister title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1800–1810 creation date earliest: 1795 creation date latest: 1810 current location: creditline: Bequest of Mrs. A. Dean Perry copyright: --- culture: England, 18th century technique: watercolor and graphite, heightened with traces of white gouache, on 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: 17.4 x 14 cm (6 7/8 x 5 1/2 in.); Image: 13.2 x 11.4 cm (5 3/16 x 4 1/2 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: description: cream(3) wove paper watermarks: inscriptions: inscription: across bottom, in graphite: Genl Macalester ; VERSO, center, in graphite: 169; lower left, in graphite: l. 159. [circled] translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS 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 John Smart (1741-1811), by inheritance to his son John James Smart date: -1811 footnotes: citations: John James Smart (1805-1870), by inheritance to his daughter Mary Ann Bose date: 1811-70 footnotes: citations: Mary Ann Bose (née Smart, 1856–1934) by inheritance to her daughter Lilian Mary Dyer, great-granddaughter of the artist date: 1870-1934 footnotes: citations: Lilian Mary Dyer (née Bose, 1876-1955) date: 1934-37 footnotes: citations: Sale: Christie’s, London, November 26, 1937 (lot 54) date: November 26, 1937 footnotes: citations: (Colnaghi, London) date: After 1937 footnotes: citations: Edward B. Greene (1878-1957), Cleveland, OH, by inheritance to his daughter Helen Perry date: Before 1957 footnotes: citations: Helen Perry (née Greene, 1911-1996), Cleveland, OH date: c. 1957-96 footnotes: citations: Held in trust by the Estate of Helen Perry, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art date: 1996-1997 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art. date: 1997- 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 great number were inherited by his son John James Smart, who in turn left them to his daughter Mary Ann Bose. Upon her death in 1934, they were divided between three of her children: William Henry Bose, Lilian Dyer, and Mabel Annie Busteed.
General MacAlister is represented in three-quarter view, bust length, and facing the right. His eyes are blue, but the right eye is clouded and lighter in color than the left. There is no sign of isolated damage or fading, confirming that this color difference was among MacAlister’s physical attributes. He wears a brown coat; white, frilled vest edged in black; tall collar; and a white cravat tied in a bow. His closely cropped hair is powdered, and an unidentified rocky landscape through which a small river runs is painted in the background; it probably represents a place of personal significance in Scotland or India, possibly even Seringapatam and the Cauvery River. Smart depicted MacAlister inside of a penciled oval tromp l’oeil frame. The drawing is replete with physically informative details and is larger and more finished than drawings intended to function exclusively as preparatory sketches, though it may also have served this purpose. Beneath the elaborate penciled border is written in large graphite script “Genl Macalester.” This inscription is not in the artist’s hand and almost certainly a later addition. A Colnaghi label was removed from the verso after the work entered the museum’s collection.
The sitter is likely Major-General Keith MacAlister (1746–1820) of the Madras Cavalry. He was the eldest of three soldier brothers who served with distinction in India. MacAlister was born at Skerrinish in the Isle of Skye and ascended through the ranks rapidly following his appointment as cadet in 1777. He became captain in 1796; lieutenant-colonel in 1799; colonel in 1809; and major-general in 1812. He is celebrated particularly for his role in the 1799 storming and capture of Seringapatam, a decisive battleground in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, and for rescuing his brother Matthew from a long imprisonment in the same city. MacAlister was also instrumental in organizing the Madras Light Cavalry.5 Smart’s portrait of MacAlister would have been painted between 1800 and 1810, when the sitter was an older man and had returned to England before settling in Scotland.
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art owns a Smart portrait on ivory called Keith Michael Alexander, dated 1810. Although he wears a military uniform rather than civilian clothes, the sitter is identical to the one in the Cleveland drawing—note in particular the differently colored eyes and the blue veins at the left temple. Although it was painted in 1810, possibly some years after the Cleveland sketch, the sitter’s hair loss is more pronounced in the earlier drawing. This inconsistency can be explained by the fact that Regency fashion called for men to comb their hair forward, thereby obscuring baldness, as seen here. Otherwise, the portraits are so similar that it is likely that Smart was consulting the earlier finished drawing when executing the 1810 miniature in ivory.
Both “General Macalister” and “Colonel Keith Michael Alexander” are listed by Daphne Foskett among Smart’s sitters, but she reproduces images only of the latter Nelson-Atkins miniature. No additional portraits of the period depicting gentlemen of either name have been discovered at this time. The Nelson-Atkins ivory has been called Keith Michael Alexander by tradition at least since it was in the Mr. and Mrs. John W. Starr collection before entering the museum in 1958. However, the miniature has not been removed from the frame since its acquisition, and there is no evidence of an inscription. It is likely that Keith Michael Alexander is a mistaken interpretation of the name Keith MacAlister, particularly because no record of a soldier by the name of Keith Michael Alexander has been discovered. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Christie, Manson & Woods. Ancient and Modern Pictures and Drawings. 1937. page number: lot 54 url: Foskett, Daphne. John Smart: the Man and His Miniatures. [London]: Cory, Adams & Mackay, 1964. page number: pp. 70, 89 url: Korkow, Cory, and Jon L. Seydl. British Portrait Miniatures: The Cleveland Museum of Art. 2013. page number: Cat. no. 49, pp. 199-203 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1997.77/1997.77_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1997.77/1997.77_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1997.77/1997.77_full.tif