{
"data": {
"id": 540587,
"accession_number": "2023.46",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Sidi Hadji Abdurrahman Adja (1720\u20131792), 1786. Richard Cosway (British, 1742\u20131821). Graphite, watercolor, red chalk on paper; matted: 38.4 x 28.6 cm (15 1/8 x 11 1/4 in.); sheet: 33.2 x 24.9 cm (13 1/16 x 9 13/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund, 2023.46",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Sidi Hadji Abdurrahman Adja (1720\u20131792)",
"creation_date": "1786",
"creation_date_earliest": 1786,
"creation_date_latest": 1786,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"England"
],
"technique": "graphite, watercolor, red chalk on paper",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Drawings",
"collection": "DR - British",
"type": "Drawing",
"measurements": "Matted: 38.4 x 28.6 cm (15 1/8 x 11 1/4 in.); Sheet: 33.2 x 24.9 cm (13 1/16 x 9 13/16 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.332,
"height_inch": 13,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.0625,
"width": 0.249,
"width_inch": 9,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.8125
},
"matted": {
"height": 0.384,
"height_inch": 15,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.125,
"width": 0.286,
"width_inch": 11,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.25
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "The attire of this gentleman is that of a high-ranking North African secretary or scholar, which led scholars to identify him as the ambassador from Tripoli.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "Richard Cosway was a prolific painter in London, most well-known for his portrait miniatures and drawings, which he made both on commission and as personal exercises or mementos. Cosway and his wife, Maria Hadfield Cosway, held a fashionable salon at their London residence, and may have invited the likely subject of this drawing, the ambassador from Tripoli, Sidi Hadji Abdurrahman Adja (1720-1792). Abdurrahman Adja was in London in 1786, arrived to improve Tripoli\u2019s reputation with Great Britain. Cosway portrayed the ambassador in a fleeting moment with eyes closed, making sure to capture the fine beard and robes for which he was much admired by London society.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q120401472"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-2023.46-sidi-hadji-abdurrahm"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "Ferrari, Emma, \u201cI Disegni di Riccardo Cosway nella Biblioteca di Lodi,\u201d Rassegna d\u2019Arte XIII (1913)",
"page_number": "144-147, p. 145",
"url": ""
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/2023.46",
"images": {
"annotation": null,
"web": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2023.46/2023.46_web.jpg",
"width": "686",
"height": "900",
"filesize": "291695",
"filename": "2023.46_web.jpg"
},
"print": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2023.46/2023.46_print.jpg",
"width": "2592",
"height": "3400",
"filesize": "3819121",
"filename": "2023.46_print.jpg"
},
"full": {
"url": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2023.46/2023.46_full.tif",
"width": "7416",
"height": "9729",
"filesize": "216480484",
"filename": "2023.46_full.tif"
}
},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 540587,
"creators": [
{
"id": 3700,
"description": "Richard Cosway (British, 1742\u20131821)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Richard Cosway was Arguably the most fashionable miniature painter in London during the art form\u2019s golden age in
late-eighteenth-century Britain. Also an accomplished painter in oils, Cosway was equally well known for his flamboyant character and the stunning art collection that secured his reputation as an arbiter of taste and model of connoisseurship. His elegant portraits in miniature were coveted by sitters who sought glamour even if it was at the expense of truthfulness. Cosway and his wife, Maria (ne\u00e9 Hadfield), maintained an elite circle of friends who helped define what
was au courant for the age and who consisted primarily of cultural luminaries and young members of high society revolving around George Augustus Frederick, the prince of Wales himself. His steady patronage from 1780 until 1808 fixed Cosway\u2019s popularity within fashionable society. From 1785 Cosway\u2019s miniatures were signed on the back: \u201cPrimarius Pictor Serenissimi Walliae Principis\u201d (Principal Painter to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales), a pompous Latin designation that garnered the artist both fame and ridicule. Cosway was a successful artist-celebrity in his own time, and, in spite of being criticized periodically for being too superficially pretty, his miniatures have always been among the most desired by collectors. The Cleveland Museum of Art owns five miniatures by Cosway, painted between 1785 and 1805, that are representative of the artist\u2019s stylistic range during the height of his career.",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1742",
"death_year": "1821",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "2023-06-05T04:00:00Z",
"sortable_date": 1786,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1786",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": true,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-29 09:10:49.471000"
}
}