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"tombstone": "Portrait of Sir Captain West of the Dutton Indiaman, 1785. John I Smart (British, 1741\u20131811). Watercolor over traces of black chalk, with metallic gold paint on laid paper; sheet: 16.3 x 15.3 cm (6 7/16 x 6 in.); unframed: 19.6 x 15.3 cm (7 11/16 x 6 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Mrs. A. Dean Perry, 1997.79",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Portrait of Sir Captain West of the Dutton Indiaman",
"creation_date": "1785",
"creation_date_earliest": 1785,
"creation_date_latest": 1785,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"England, 18th century"
],
"technique": "watercolor over traces of black chalk, with metallic gold paint on laid paper",
"support_materials": [
{
"description": "cream(3) modern laid paper",
"watermarks": []
}
],
"department": "Drawings",
"collection": "DR - British",
"type": "Portrait Miniature",
"measurements": "Sheet: 16.3 x 15.3 cm (6 7/16 x 6 in.); Unframed: 19.6 x 15.3 cm (7 11/16 x 6 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.163,
"height_inch": 6,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.4375,
"width": 0.153,
"width_inch": 6,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0
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"unframed": {
"height": 0.196,
"height_inch": 7,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.6875,
"width": 0.153,
"width_inch": 6,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0
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"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "by artist, across bottom, in brown ink: Captain West of the Dutton Indiaman 1785 / drawn on board going to Madras",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
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"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 202388,
"title": "Disembodied: Portrait Minatures and their Contemporary Relatives",
"description": "Disembodied: Portrait Minatures and their Contemporary Relatives. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 10, 2013-February 16, 2014).",
"opening_date": "2013-11-10T00:00:00"
}
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"legacy": []
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"provenance": [
{
"description": "John Smart (1741-1811), by inheritance to his son John James Smart",
"citations": [],
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"date": "Until 1811",
"sortorder": 1
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{
"description": "John James Smart (1805-1870), by inheritance to his daughter Mary Ann Bose",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1811-70",
"sortorder": 2
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{
"description": "Mary Ann Bose (n\u00e9e Smart, 1856-1934), by inheritance to her daughter Lilian Mary Dyer",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1870-1934",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "Lilian Mary Dyer (n\u00e9e Bose, 1876-1955), great-granddaughter of the artist",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1934-37",
"sortorder": 4
},
{
"description": "Sale: Christie\u2019s, London, November 26, 1937 (lot 8)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "November 26, 1937",
"sortorder": 5
},
{
"description": "Colnaghi, London",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "After 1937",
"sortorder": 6
},
{
"description": "Edward B. Greene (1878-1957), Cleveland, by inheritance to his daughter Helen Perry",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "Before 1957",
"sortorder": 7
},
{
"description": "Helen Perry (n\u00e9e Greene, 1911-1996), Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "c. 1957-96",
"sortorder": 8
},
{
"description": "Estate of Mrs. Helen Perry, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1996-97",
"sortorder": 9
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
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"date": "1997-",
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"did_you_know": "In 1784 it was written that \"Captain James West, had the just reputation of being a first-rate mariner, a well-informed, and thoroughly practical man of business, and in every way worthy of confidential intimacy.\"",
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"description": "Smart painted Captain West\u2019s head in profile, turned to the right. His powdered hair is worn en queue with curls above his ears and white powder on his shoulders. He has long eyelashes, parted lips, and a grayish cast to his skin tone, particularly over his beard. West dons a blue coat with gold buttonholes embroidered in gold and a white waistcoat, high collar, and cravat tied in a small bow. This work is a finished drawing by Smart, evidenced in part by its larger size and by the fact that the painting of the sitter\u2019s clothing is complete and the bust is placed within an elaborate border comprised of blue, metallic gold, and gray lines. This finished quality does not preclude the possibility that the drawing may also have functioned as a preparatory sketch for a miniature on ivory, which has not been located.
Captain James West sailed the Dutton Indiaman from England to Madras, India, on several occasions, including Smart\u2019s voyage in 1785. At least one of the sons of British judge Sir Elijah Impey was traveling with Smart on his journey to India and had his portrait taken by the artist. Another of Impey\u2019s sons wrote of an earlier return passage to England made with Captain West in 1784, shedding light on the sea captain\u2019s character and disposition. Impey\u2019s account conveys not only West\u2019s personality but the atmosphere that prevailed on the ship over which the captain presided and on which Smart traveled and worked.
As indicated by an inscription in the artist\u2019s hand, this portrait was painted by Smart while he was aboard the Dutton en route to Madras and probably retained by the artist as a memento. In addition to the portrait of \u201cMaster Impey,\u201d Smart is known to have taken the likeness of other figures while aboard the Dutton, including the quartermaster \u201cBaker\u201d and a French ship called the Consalateur, which was intercepted by the Dutton while sailing to India. The current location of both works is unknown.",
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"citations": [
{
"citation": "Christie, Manson & Woods. Ancient and Modern Pictures and Drawings. 1937.",
"page_number": "lot 58",
"url": ""
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{
"citation": "Foskett, Daphne. John Smart: the Man and His Miniatures. [London]: Cory, Adams & Mackay, 1964.",
"page_number": "pp. 13, 76, 89",
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},
{
"citation": "Korkow, Cory, and Jon L. Seydl. British Portrait Miniatures: The Cleveland Museum of Art. 2013.",
"page_number": "Cat. no. 46, pp. 189-192",
"url": ""
}
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"id": 3691,
"description": "John I Smart (British, 1741\u20131811)",
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"biography": "John Smart is often regarded as the most skilled painter of portrait miniatures at the height of the art form\u2019s popularity in late-eighteenth-century Britain. While the free style and white and blue color palette of his rival Richard Cosway (1742\u20131821) conjured up the glamour of fashionable society, Smart\u2019s 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\u2019s homogenized modishness.
Information is limited about Smart\u2019s life and career, so much so that while G. C. Williamson had penned the definitive biographies of Cosway, George Engleheart (1752\u20131829), and Andrew Plimer (1763\u20131837) by 1905, it wasn\u2019t until 1964 that a biography of Smart appeared. Little is known about the artist\u2019s 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\u2019s London school in St. Martin\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s countenance through the use of delicate stippling, often featuring wrinkles, crow\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s years in India, and two after his 1795 return to London.",
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"updated_at": "2026-05-29 08:18:50.254000"
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