{
"data": {
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"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Portrait of Sir John Macpherson, 1st Baronet, Governor-General of India, 1787. John I Smart (British, 1741\u20131811). Watercolor and gouache heightened with white gouache on paper; image: 8.8 x 7.6 cm (3 7/16 x 3 in.); sheet: 9.1 x 7.9 cm (3 9/16 x 3 1/8 in.); secondary support: 18.1 x 16 cm (7 1/8 x 6 5/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Mrs. A. Dean Perry, 1997.80",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Portrait of Sir John Macpherson, 1st Baronet, Governor-General of India",
"creation_date": "1787",
"creation_date_earliest": 1787,
"creation_date_latest": 1787,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"England, 18th century"
],
"technique": "watercolor and gouache heightened with white gouache on paper",
"support_materials": [
{
"description": "beige(1) wove (?) paper, hinged to cream-yellow board",
"watermarks": []
}
],
"department": "Drawings",
"collection": "DR - British",
"type": "Portrait Miniature",
"measurements": "Image: 8.8 x 7.6 cm (3 7/16 x 3 in.); Sheet: 9.1 x 7.9 cm (3 9/16 x 3 1/8 in.); Secondary Support: 18.1 x 16 cm (7 1/8 x 6 5/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.091,
"height_inch": 3,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.5625,
"width": 0.079,
"width_inch": 3,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.125
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"image": {
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"height_inch": 3,
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"width": 0.076,
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"secondary support": {
"height": 0.181,
"height_inch": 7,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.125,
"width": 0.16,
"width_inch": 6,
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"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "signed, lower right, in black ink: J S / 1787 / Madras ; VERSO, lower right, in graphite: 6 1/8 x 6 7/8\r\nFoskett, Daphne. John Smart: The Man and His Miniatures, pp. 13, 76, 89. London: Cory, Adams & Mackay, 1964. ",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
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],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "John Smart (1741-1811); by inheritance to his son John James Smart",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "Until 1811",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "John James Smart (1805-1870); by inheritance to his daughter Mary Ann Bose",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1811-70",
"sortorder": 2
},
{
"description": "Mary Ann Bose (n\u00e9e Smart, 1856-1934).; by inheritance to her son William Henry Bose",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1870-1934",
"sortorder": 3
},
{
"description": "William Henry Bose (1875-1957), great-grandson of the artist",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1934-37",
"sortorder": 4
},
{
"description": "Sale: Christie\u2019s, London, February 15, 1937 (lot 43)",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "February 15, 1937",
"sortorder": 5
},
{
"description": "Colnaghi, London, England",
"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).",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "c. 1957-96",
"sortorder": 8
},
{
"description": "Estate of Mrs. A. Dean Perry (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",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1997-",
"sortorder": 10
}
],
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"did_you_know": "John Smart retained hundreds of sketches which were passed down in turn to his son, granddaughter, and great-grandchildren.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "The sitter\u2019s head and shoulders face left. He smiles slightly and has light blue eyes, with his powdered hair curled above the ear and tied en queue. He wears a green jacket edged in gold with gold buttons and dons a high white collar, a waistcoat, and a frilled cravat, each highlighted with white gouache. The nature of this work as a finished
drawing rather than exclusively a preparatory sketch for a miniature on ivory is evident in the degree of finish of the sitter\u2019s clothing, which is painted to the oval termination within a border of pale blue gouache. A Colnaghi label was removed from the verso after the work entered the museum\u2019s collection.
Sir John Macpherson (1745\u20131821) was the son of a Scottish minister. His many tours of service with the East India Company were marred by corruption and scandal. He was made acting governor-general of India in 1785\u201386 between the resignation of Warren Hastings (1732\u20131818) and the succession by Lord Cornwallis (1738\u20131805). Macpherson
was created a baronet in 1786 when he was removed from office, returning to England shortly thereafter. He was an inveterate bachelor, popular in society for his handsomeness, charm, and facility with languages, but also known for his avarice and fraudulence.
The work is signed with Smart\u2019s initials and dated \u201c1787 Madras\u201d at the lower right. Macpherson was no longer governor-general in 1787 and would have been preparing to return to England when this portrait was painted. The drawing is inscribed on the back in the artist\u2019s hand: \u201ca sketch of Sir John Macpherson painted at Madras, 1787, on his
passage from Bengall [sic] to England by Jno [sic] Smart.\u201d Smart did not return to England until 1795, so the word passage must be defined as \u201con his journey\u201d rather than \u201caboard ship.\u201d At the time this portrait was taken, Macpherson was grappling with his premature removal from office and beginning to plot what would become many years of negotiations to regain his position or receive compensation for having lost it, though none of this emotional turmoil is visible in Smart\u2019s portrait.",
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{
"citation": "Christie, Manson & Woods. Sketches and Studies for Miniature Portraits by John Smart; Objects of Art & Vertu. London: Christie, Manson & Woods, 1937.",
"page_number": "lot 43",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Foskett, Daphne. John Smart: the Man and His Miniatures. [London]: Cory, Adams & Mackay, 1964.",
"page_number": "pp. 19, 70, 84",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Korkow, Cory, and Jon L. Seydl. British Portrait Miniatures: The Cleveland Museum of Art. 2013.",
"page_number": "Cat. no. 48, pp. 196-198",
"url": ""
}
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"creditline": "Bequest of Mrs. A. Dean Perry",
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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.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1741",
"death_year": "1811",
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"accession_date": "1997-06-02T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1787,
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"date_text": "1787",
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"updated_at": "2026-05-29 08:18:47.884000"
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