Intimate objects - The Fitzwilliam Museum

Intimate
objects
British Portraits from Smart to Spencer in
The Fitzwilliam Museum
JOHN SMART (1741(1741-1811)
‘Unsurpassed in the whole of the eighteenth century either in his
portrayal of character or in sheer honest representation - in true
nobility the works of John Smart are in a class of their own.'i
John Smart is thought to have born in Norfolk in 1742 and he was
enrolled, on 23 September 1755, at William Shipley's (founder of
the Royal Society of Arts) drawing academy on St Martin's Lane,
London. This appears to have been his only formal artistic training
and it is not known where he learnt to paint miniatures. Smart
exhibited his capabilities as a draughtsman from a young age,
entering pencil and chalk drawings in the Society of Arts
competitions. In the 1755 competition he came second to Richard
Cosway and went on to win each of the following three years.
Smart and Cosway would continue to compete throughout their
professional careers as miniature painters vying, along with others,
for commissions.
#
Fig. 1. John Smart (1741(1741-1811),
1811), SelfSelf-Portrait, 1783
Watercolour and bodycolour on ivory, 3.8 x 2.9 cm.
Lent anonymously to The Fitzwilliam Museum.
Provenance
•
Collection of J. R. Menzies, North Berwick
•
Sotheby’s 28 June 1935 (lot 156) as a portrait of William
Rankin Allen
•
Arthur Jaffé
Smart became one of the foremost miniaturists in London, where
competition amongst artists was strong. However, he soon realised
the potential for work in India and he set sail for Madras in
the autumn of 1785. Proving the
extent of competition between
miniaturists, this move was met
with notable concern by Ozias
Humphrey.ii Fortunately,
Humphrey set himself up in
Calcutta and Smart stayed in
Madras so the two artists were
never in direct competition. Smart
worked in Madras for ten years
where he painted wealthy English
residents and Indian princes
(Fig.2). Smart’s portraits from his
time in India are easily
identifiable as he included an ‘I’
Fig.2
for ‘India’ after his usual signature
and date. He returned to London at the end of 1795 and
immediately re-established his practice there. He lived first at 20
Grafton Street, London, but in about 1799 moved to 2 Russell
Place, Fitzroy Square with his second wife, Edith Vere.
The Self-portrait (Fig.1) dates from 1783, by which time Smart had
been a professional painter for over twenty years. After over a
decade exhibiting with the Society of Artists, Smart was made its
director in 1771, vice-president in 1777 and president in 1778. In
addition to these honours, his success enabled him to amass
significant personal wealth and when he eventually died in 1811,
he left close to £9000 in his estate.
Making miniatures
The eighteenth century saw a shift in portrait miniature painting,
from the use of vellum as a support to a preference for ivory. This
change is somewhat puzzling as ivory does not provide a good
painting surface for artists, being naturally oily and nonabsorbent. These qualities make it rather ill-suited to the
application of water-based paints. Moreover, initially artists did
not make use of the translucency of ivory as densely painted
layers obscured the support and the ivory itself is was cut too
thick to take advantage of its qualities. Ivory was, however, a
luxurious material. Indeed , Marcia Pointon has recognised that
although it took some time for artists to explore the potential
visual effects that ivory could offer their paintings, ‘the material
was more consonant with the idea of precious jeweller’s work
than vellum.'iii Miniatures were personal but fashionable luxury
objects that were worn and seen (or worn to be seen at the
discretion of the wearer). This is made evident by their
appearance adorning many sitters in oil paintings and prints of
the period. Certainly, the ivory does not seem out of place.
When portrait miniatures were at their height of popularity, in
the second half of the eighteenth century, artists were able to
refine their technique. Smart’s miniatures are predominantly
painted on ivory and the rest on paper.iv The ivory was cut more
thinly by this time, and the surface could be scraped and ground
with glass-paper and wet pumice powder to smooth it.
Fig.3
Excess grease could be removed with vinegar and garlic. Interest in
the challenge of painting on ivory and the skill required to succeed
at it is revealed in Arthur Parsey’s 1831 publication, The art of
miniature painting on ivory:
It requires some observation not to take opaque
colour too dry, nor too wet, or it will drag and not lay
even, or it will pull up the colour, or cause the white
to rise on the surface. If too gummy, it will give great
trouble, and if not sufficiently gummed, it will look
dry, which, if repeated on with gummy colour, will
peal off. It would be advisable for persons
unacquainted with colour, to try every colour with
different strengths on a good-sized ivory pallet,
then go through all the tints, and lastly the bodycolours.v
It is possible, under magnification, to see the way Smart applied
paint to different parts of his Self-portrait in order to render his
famously polished likenesses. The smooth life-like effect that
Smart has created is actually comprised of a densely stippled
application of paint (Fig.3). This stippling allows him to build up
the paint layers without lifting the underlayers of paint from the
ivory, as Parsey warns can happen. The face is the most
elaborately worked area, with grey-blue pigment under the flesh
tones around the mouth and jaw-line to softly model the artist’s
features and suggest light stubble (Fig.3). Smart’s subjects,
particularly the men, are noted as having slightly ruddy
complexions, the reddish-pink flesh tones standing out and give
his faces an even warmth. In other areas, highlights are created
by leaving small areas of ivory either tinted with a single
translucent wash of colour or left to shine through entirely free of
paint. The highlight on the tip of his nose, however, is painted in
white (Fig.3), as is the white on the back of his collar, applied in
brisk dashes of the brush (Fig4). In other places Smart actually
scraped away narrow channels of paint to reveal the white ivory
beneath. This is seen most extensively beneath the eyes and to
thin out the eyebrows (Fig.5), but there are also touches in the
hair, the ear and the corner of the mouth. Furthermore, there is
an area of pentimento on the right outline of the face where the
darkened outline has been modified with a few scraped lines
(Fig.6).
Smart was an almost exact contemporary of Richard Cosway but
the two artists had markedly different styles. Cosway work is
characterised by delicate fluid lines and light tones,
whereas Smart was more meticulous: his portraits, often worked up
from graphite sketches, are densely built up in bodycolour creating
something of the pristine effect of enamel. He was recognised for
his incredible skill at catching a likeness with absolute truth and
accuracy.vi Presumably, when Arthur Parsey wrote on the technique
of miniature painting, Smart was one of the ‘eminent painters’ he
was thinking of when he described their collective brilliance. He
writes: ‘If the works of eminent painters are examined, nothing like
the touch of a fine-pointed small pencil can be seen, the colour is
solid, and the texture produced by finishing, is round, broad, and
firm.’vii This is certainly true when looking at the self-portrait,
which measures, only 3.8 x 2.9 cm. The complex and very
controlled stippled application of bodycolour gradually shapes the
contours of his face and brings warmth to his complexion. Under
magnification the meticulous, dense brushwork in the face is
revealed and contrasts quite dramatically with his surprisingly free
and sparingly painted white stock collar, bow, and frill with
expanses of ivory left visible to provide the cream tone (Fig.7).
Ozias Humphry said that Smart’s miniatures were painted, ‘without
any flattery’.viii This sets him quite apart from Cosway. Though
very accurate, Smart’s controlled style, evident in the self-portrait,
on one hand felicitous, conceals the means of representation and
we are encouraged to question the function of this as an intimate
object, how Smart controlled his image, and how he wished himself
to be seen.
Fig.4
Fig.5
Fig.7
Fig.6
John Smart self-portraits
Fig.9, c.1783
Fig. 8, 1783
Fig.10, 1797
Fig.11, 1802
POR
PORTRAITS
TRAITS AND INTIMACY
SelfSelf-fashioning
Daphne Foskett counted nine self-portraits of Smart in her 1972
monograph of the artist, but only four are illustrated and their
whereabouts identified.ix Three of the nine are in public
collections, namely the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
(Fig.10); the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Cleveland
Museum of Art, USA (Fig.11). The other two are the 1783 version
(Fig.1) and a graphite sketch from the Jaffé collection (Fig.9).
There is a graphite portrait by Smart at the Nationalmuseum,
Stockholm (Fig.12). Although listed as a self-portrait, it does not
boast a distinct likeness to the artist and it seems more likely the
image of another.
Fig.12
The 1783 self-portrait (Fig.1) was included in the Scottish Print Club
exhibition of 1928 not as a self-portrait, but as 'William Rankin
Allen' and still bore that attribution in 1935 when sold by Sotheby’s.
The name has not been traced, nor is it known how it was linked to
this portrait. Arthur Jaffé identified the miniature as a self-portrait
when he bought it in 1935 and, indeed, on comparison with Smart's
other self-portraits there is no reason to doubt this attribution.x It
was uncommon for a miniaturist to make this number (and there
may have been others, now lost) of self-portraits and the
proliferation of images of Smart, if seen as an effort of selfpromotion, supports his reputation as particularly ambitious and
self-assured. Indeed, the diarist Joseph Farrington wrote: ‘…we also
met Smart who had been walking to Hampstead. He shewed us a
miniature picture of Master Betty which He had just finished. It
was like the Boy. - Smart was, as usual, very much delighted with
his own performance.’xi
The most grandiose of Smart’s self-portraits is undoubtedly the
1797 version in the V&A (Fig10). Painted not long after his return
from India where he worked from 1785 to 1796, it announces his
return to London society. This self-portrait was probably that
which Smart exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1797.xii He had not
exhibited at the Academy before and was evidently keen to reestablish himself in London. Smart fashions an image of an artist at
the height of his powers: well-dressed in a vivid green coat and
pristine white stock collar, bow, and frill. He is dressed and
presented, as always, as indistinguishable from his clients; an artist
of equal social standing to his patrons. Many of his miniatures have
a plain background but here he has set his likeness against a
dramatic sky. He seems to have adopted this device whilst working
in India but here it is more expansive than usual and creates an
emotive backdrop. As such, the sky in this self-portrait helps to
aggrandise the sitter and perhaps alludes to Smart’s recent travels.
If this 1797 self-portrait is an advert, can it, or indeed, any, of
Smart’s self-portraits be called ‘intimate objects’? Even if not shown
officially in an exhibition, miniaturists could use their self-portraits
to display their skills in capturing a likeness to prospective clients,
either by presenting them at certain moments or displaying them
on the studio wall so as to be seen by visitors. The advantage of a
self-portrait in this context was that the likeness was
immediately verifiable. Perhaps Smart felt it necessary to re-visit
his image often to record every slight change in his appearance
and support his reputation for executing such incredibly honest
portraits.xiii This creation of a likeness and one that can be given,
held and possessed was the essential tenet of the portrait
miniature. This is made evident by the fact that as a genre they
enjoyed their heyday in Smart’s time and all but disappeared with
the invention of photography.
publicly as a powerful declaration of possession or ownership when
desired. The intimate nature of portrait miniatures is specific to
them but intimacy in portraiture operates differently when the
scale and media altar and the viewer is required to engage with the
intimate world of the single figure in new ways. Smart was clearly
interested recording his appearance and fashioning an image of
himself that would correspond to or even elevate his social
standing and reputation. Looking at a very different but intensely
It is possible that Smart intended his self-portraits to serve a
private function as well as a commercial one. He executed
portraits of family members, including wives and children. Smart
was married three times. His first wife, with whom he had three
children, eloped to Rome with the artist William Pars and died in
1778. Before leaving for India he had a relationship with Sarah
Midgeley who bore him two children, including John Smart Junior
(1776–1809), became a miniature painter, working in a style very
close to that of his father. He married Edith Vere after his return
from India and, finally, Mary Morton (1783–1851) on 14 February
1805, and they had two children. It is wholly possible that Smart’s
self-portraits had some personal significance beyond a display of
artistic virtuosity and identity. The self-portrait, listed in the
catalogue for Christie’s sale of the property of Mrs Dyer, the
great-granddaughter of the artist, was described as “nearly in
profile to the right, in grey-green coat, white vest and white
cravat, his hair powdered—signed with initials, and dated 1797—in
oval gold frame, the reverse with his monogram and a lock of
hair.’xiv The inclusion of the lock of hair creates a powerful sense
of intimacy. The 1783 (Fig.1) miniature is small enough to be held
in the hand, worn about the person and demands close
inspection, drawing the viewer into the miniaturist’s world.
Portrait miniatures are at once intensely private and could be
worn concealed about the person not on open display, but also
be worn like, or as, jewellery. They were set in protective, lavish
(with varying degrees of ornamentation) casings and revealed
Fig.13
intimate self-portrait (Fig.13) in the Fitzwilliam’s collection, by
another British artist, William Orpen, born more than 60 years
after Smart’s death, we see an artist engaged in fashioning his
image but in a very different way. Unlike Smart’s encased
likeness, Orpen drew this on a scrap of paper, the directness and
spontaneity are clear with the sense of the artist’s hand moving
across the paper ever-present. The very personal nature of this
sketch, supported by the note around the drawing, offers a
glimpse into a private world. Orpen, whose facility as a portrait
painter put him in high demand in Edwardian society and made
him one of the highest-earning artists of his day, was
considerably conflicted over his own appearance and said his
ugliness made him ‘a black blot on the earth.’xv Orpen drew a
host of self-portraits, often comical, to give to friends. However,
this is a complex image. Looking out over his shoulder and raising
his glass, the artist remains inscrutable and the relationship
between him and the drawing’s recipient is obscure. In the
Fitzwilliam’s self-portrait oil painting (Fig.14), Orpen’s fractured
and multiple faces ensure his image remains shifting and evasive.
These self-portraits do, however, reveal something of the artist’s
personality that a straight-forward, ‘honest’ likeness, like those
painted by Smart, would not.
The younger Paillou worked for nearly twenty years in London
before travelling north and moving his practice to Glasgow at the
beginning of the nineteenth century. He painted his Portrait of
Susannah Wedgwood (Fig.15) in 1793. In this case, the profile of the
sitter is much higher than that of the artist. Susannah was the
Living on in portraiture
Peter Paillou, the younger (c.1757-after 1831) was a contemporary
of Smart’s, working in the thriving portrait market. Almost all his
work remains in private ownership and it is difficult to distinguish
his work from that of his father, with whom he shares a name
and is best known for his paintings of birds but also has portrait
miniatures attributed to him. Daphne Foskett wrote that Paillou’s
miniatures ‘differ so much in their execution that were it not for
the signature, which is often ‘P. Paillou’ followed by a date and
written along the edge, one would almost imagine that they were
not by the same hand.xvi
Fig.14
eldest daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, the founder of Wedgwood
pottery. She married Robert Darwin in 1795 and they had two
children: Erasmus and Charles. This miniature portrays Susannah,
who was known affectionately as 'Sukey’, aged 28, before her
marriage and it was passed down through the Darwin family. It
symbolises the close relationship between father and daughter
and his giving her away to the son of his friend, Erasmus Darwin.
It is thought, given the proximity in date to their marriage and its
provenance in the Darwin family that miniature was probably
made to be given to Robert. Susannah gave birth to six children
and the second youngest among them was Charles, who would
go on to become the great naturalist. The miniature is known to
have held particularly personal significance for Charles, whose
relationship with his mother was cut short. Susannah suffered
extreme ill-health and became increasingly withdrawn from her
family, the younger children being looked after by their nanny
and elder sister, Caroline. Their mother died in 1817 when
Charles was only eight years old.
The life and meaning of the miniature continued to change over
the years as it passed through different hands and came to
embody the memory of the subject. When Robert died his
belongings went to his son, Erasmus and when he, in turn, died in
1881 Charles’ sons found it amongst his possessions. Charles had
written of how dismayed he was at his inability to remember his
mother: ‘It is odd that I can remember barely anything about her’
and several years later, when he received the miniature, he asked
his sister Caroline to verify the likeness as he was unable but felt
important to know the extent to which it resembled her.xvii On
hearing that she did think it a true likeness, he wrote: ‘I am
extremely glad that the miniature is like my mother for it shows
a most sweet expression. I value it much and so will my
children.’xviii This feeds the idea that meaning in portraiture can
change and, more particularly, that miniatures can act as standins for an absent person and memorials for departed loved ones.
The portrait was to prove crucial in keeping the memory of
Susannah alive. Precedence for this thinking can be traced as far
back as Aristotle’s Poetics. For Aristotle, true likeness in
portraiture (as a form of mimesis) is essential and pleasure is
derived from recognition.xix Alberti developed this further in the
fifteenth century, writing: ‘painting contains a divine force which
not only makes the absent present, as friendship is said to do, but
moreover makes the dead seem almost alive.’xx
There is more to consider than Susannah’s likeness when looking
at this miniature. Raymond Lister notes, in the case of Smart, that
as the miniatures increased in size and the bracelet framing
became outmoded, the feeling that the portrait was a personal
possession of exceptional intimacy was preserved by including the
sitter’s initials and tresses of hair in the back of the frame.xxi This
practice was begun earlier, in the second half of the seventeenth
century and, indeed, in seventeenth-century England locks of hair
were worn as mourning ornaments. Turning over the miniature
(Fig.16), reveals a carefully and beautifully plaited lock of
Susannah’s hair. Hair, monumentalised in this way, was perfect for
inclusion in miniatures as it doesn’t decay and the intimate tactility
of it is a vivid reminder of the person portrayed on the other side.xxii
Furthermore, the reverse is often hidden and the cumulative effect
of seeing first the portrait and then - being able to turn it over the lock of hair, must be considered a greater extent of intimate
engagement with the object and, ultimately, the subject. This
portrait miniature was to Charles Darwin an essential representation of his mother and became not only a symbol of the
memory of her, but part of the his relationship with her,
embellishing the memory of her life.
Fig.15
Fig.16
Captured intimacies
Portrait miniatures are particularly intimate objects because of
their small size and the way they were given, held, worn, and
displayed in protective housings. But the notion of intimacy
remains central throughout portraiture, and artists have explored
it in various, often very personal, ways.
The painting of a portrait implies a certain familiarity between
artist and sitter; subject and owner. When there was an intimate
personal relationship between artist and subject, that relationship
informs our understanding of the portrait. In The Birthday of
1868, William Holman Hunt painted his sister-in-law and future
wife, Edith Waugh (1846-1931)xxiii. Hunt had been married to
Fanny Waugh but she died within a year of their marriage, in
1866. Fanny fell pregnant immediately upon their marriage and
she died in Florence from a fever six weeks after giving birth.
This, then, is the sister portrait to Fanny Holman Hunt, dated
1866-7.xxiv Clearly composed as a pendent, Edith’s portrait
matches the dimensions of Fanny’s, echoing the first portrait.
Indeed, her daughter, Diana Holman Hunt wrote: ‘Edith was
painted with the presents she received on her 21st birthday [7
October 1967]. … It was while Edith was sitting for this portrait
that [Hunt] realised that she had always been in love with him.
She was now a younger, more beautiful edition of Fanny.’xxv
However, there are differences between the portraits. Fanny is
relatively unadorned, whereas Edith is laden with birthday gifts.
Amber beads, a fan, a gold watch on a chain, and a micro mosaic
bracelet hang from her hands; and she wears a coral necklace.
Fanny’s lilies with their connotations to purity are exchanged for
roses, symbolising romance and love.
Fanny’s shoulders are draped with a paisley shawl, but Edith is
covered by a peacock feather cape edged with white swansdown.
The peacock feather in this painting has been associated with
vanity but it seems appropriate to consider the traditional
meaning of it as a symbol of immortality and renewal, the portrait
immortalising the subject, the memory of Fanny living on in her
sister and new love.xxvi Furthermore, there is one object which
appears in both paintings: the shell cameo brooch. It had belonged
to Fanny and Hunt gave it to Edith. The brooch had been converted
to a memorial jewel, with the inscription ‘FANNY’ engraved on the
back augmented with ‘HOLMAN TO EDITH I.M. 20 DEC. 1866’
(the date of Fanny’s death). This thematic adherence to subjects
concerned with romance, a tenet of Pre-Raphaelite art, is
enhanced with a link made to literary romance in the inscription
on the frame which is taken (though a slight misquotation) from
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: ‘My True Love is grown to such
Excess/I cannot sum up half my Sum of Wealth’.xxvii
Hunt, who rarely accepted portrait commissions, used portraiture
as a personal, individual expression and exploration of
psychological intimacy. Indeed, Hunt’s female figures have, in
general, been noted for their ‘unfashionable refusal to neglect
individual character and his pursuit of a beauty of physical
immediacy informed by an inner life.’xxviii Hunt’s portrait likeness
represented what has been termed an aesthetic of individuality
that was at odds with mainstream aestheticism, and, it has been
said, looked forward to British modernism and the likes of Walter
Sickert, Stanley Spencer and Lucian Freud.xxix
Fig.17
Spencer’s figure paintings were intensely personal and he
declared: ‘I have never had professional models, not liking the
idea.’xxx Portraiture for Spencer held an entirely different meaning
to what it did for an eighteenth century artist like John Smart and
Spencer’s Self-portrait with Patricia Preece (Fig.17) of 1937
challenges our ideas of intimacy in portraiture.
Spencer painted a series of nudes of Preece between 1935 and
their marriage in 1937. It might be expected that this large
double nude would be the most intimate of portraits but in fact
the figures appear emotionally disconnected, their bodies
overlapping pictorially but not touching, and their gazes meet
neither each other’s nor the viewer’s. Both figures are startlingly
immediate, in shallow space and pushed up against the picture
plane, the effect heightened by the visual and tonal unity of the
painting. Spencer, flattened against the picture plane, occupies an
uncertain position, both part of the pictorial space with Preece but
distant and detached as his figure cuts across hers. Spencer painted
with small brushes, working gradually across the surface and he
likened the activity of painting portraits to an ant crawling across
skin. In Smart’s miniatures the action of painting is concealed to
create a polished, illusory effect, but on this large scale Spencer’s
visible brushwork opens up the entire canvas to the viewer. Dashes
of oil paint applied by the hand of the artist evoke a sense of touch
and serve as painted equivalents to the figures’ hair and flesh.
However, the portrait remains psychologically closed-off and
Preece’s inert body and melancholic expression throws into
question the nature of the intimacy constructed here. The viewer
is put in the position of voyeur, peering over the shoulder of the
artist into the intimate space of a bedroom.
Looking at only a few portraits in the collection we see how
artists engaged with notions of intimacy in portraiture and how
important the scale, materials and function of these objects are
to the nature of the intimacy of these objects. What is also
apparent is the intimate relationship people have forged with
works of art and how the significance of these paintings and
drawings has changed over the course of time, informing our
current understanding.
Amy Marquis
NOTES
i
Lister, Raymond, The British Miniature, (London: Pitman, 1951), p.42
Williamson, George Charles, Life and works of Ozias Humphry, R.A., (London,
1918), p.118-119
iii
Marcia Pointon, ‘”Surrounded with Brilliants”: Miniature Portraits in
Eighteenth-Century England’ in The Art Bulletin, vol.83, no.1, Mar., 2001
(Accessed 19 Nov. 2012) p.53
iv
Paper started to be used as a support for miniatures to produce quicker,
cheaper portraits as the market for them expanded.
v
Parsey, Arthur, The art of miniature painting on ivory, (London: Longman,
Rees, Orme, Brown and Green, 1831), p.65
vi
‘…he had an unmistakable gift for catching a likeness, and … the finished
portraits undoubtedly represented the sitters with truth and accuracy.’ Foskett,
John Smart: The man and his miniatures, (London: Cory, Adams & MacKay Ltd.,
1964), p.28
vii Parsey, p.68
viii In particular reference to the Mary Boydell portrait (Humphry MSS, HU
3/49).
ix
Foskett, 1964, p.76
xx
Arthur Jaffé supplied images of the Self-Portrait to the Witt Library and
Heinz Archive with hand-written notes stating his attribution and a request for
information on William Rankin Allen if any transpired, of which none has yet.
xi
Farrington, Joseph, Diaries, Sunday 11th 1806.
ii
xii
Coombs, Katherine, The Portrait Miniature in England, (London: V&A
Publications, 1998), p.92
xiii
Richard Cosway apparently gave Smart the mocking nickname of ‘Honest
John’. Lister, p.44
xiv
Sketches and Studies for Miniature Portraits by John Smart, 26 November
1937, London: Christie’s, Lot64.
xv
Arnold, Bruce, Orpen: Mirror of an Age, (London: Cape, 1981), p.19
xvi
Foskett, Daphne, British Portrait Miniatures: A History, (London: Methuen,
1963), p.146
xvii
Darwin’s Mother and the Miniature with Randal Keynes, Fitzwilliam Museum
podcast, 24 August 2010:
http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/onlineresources/podcasts/article.html?871919
xviii
Ibid.
xix
Aristotle, Poetics, iv 3.
xx
Alberti, On painting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), p.63
xxi
Lister, p.43
xxii
Pointon, Marcia, Brilliant Effects: A cultural history of gem stones and
jewellery (New Haven : Yale University Press, 2009), p.294
xxiii
William Holman Hunt, The Birthday, 1868, oil on canvas, 102.9 x 72.7 cm. On
loan to The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Private collection.
xxiv
William Holman Hunt, Fanny Holman Hunt, 1866-67, oil on canvas. Private
collection.
xxv
Quoted in Bronkhurst, Judith, William Holman Hunt: a catalogue raisonne,
(London; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), p.215
xxvi
Ibid., p.217
xxvii
The original line is spoken by Juliet to Friar Lawrence and reads: ‘But my true
love is grown to such excess/I cannot sum up sum of half my wealth. (Romeo
and Juliet, 2 .6.33-34)
xxviii
Jacobi, Carol, Women: Portraits and Passion, in Lochnan & Jacobi , eds.,
Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelite vision, (Toronto : Art Gallery of
Ontario, 2008), p.88
xxix
Ibid,. p.82-84
xxx
Spencer, Stanley [733.8.22] quoted in Fiona MacCarthy et. al., Stanley
Spencer: An English Vision, New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1997),
cat.32
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Fig.16
This project was generously supported by the Understanding British Portraits
Special Subject Network.
Fig.17
Special thanks to Jane Munro, Caroline Pegum, Katherine Coombs, Michael
Jones, Andrew Norman, and Lynda Clarke.
IMAGE CREDITS
Fig. 1
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Fig.15
John Smart, Self-Portrait, 1783; watercolour on ivory, 3.8 x 2.9 cm.
Private collection.
John Smart, An Indian Prince, 1788; watercolour on ivory, 57 x 42 mm.
Given by the Friends of the Fitzwilliam Museum, 1948. PD.16-1948. ©
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.
John Smart, Self-Portrait, 1783 (detail)
John Smart, Self-Portrait, 1783 (detail)
John Smart, Self-Portrait, 1783 (detail)
John Smart, Self-Portrait, 1783 (detail)
John Smart, Self-Portrait, 1783 (detail)
John Smart, Self-Portrait, 1783.
John Smart, Self-Portrait, c.1785; graphite on paper, 7x 6 cm.
Collection of Michael Jaffé, 1964.
John Smart, Self-Portrait, 1797; watercolour on ivory; 8.6 x 7 cm (33/8
x 23/4 in.). Victoria and Albert Museum, Purchased with funds from
the Captain H. B. Murray Bequest P.11-1940. © V&A Images/Victoria
and Albert Museum, London.
John Smart, Self-Portrait, 1802; watercolour on ivory, 7 x 5.7 cm. The
Edward B. Greene Collection, the Cleveland Museum of Art
(1952.95).
John Smart, Portrait of a man (Self-portrait?); graphite and wash on
paper. NMB 1026, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.
William Newenham Montague Orpen, Self-portrait; pen and brown
ink on paper, 230 x 180 mm. Bequeathed by Henry Scipio Reitlinger,
1950, transferred from the Reitlinger Trust, 1991. PD.83-1991. ©
Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.
William Newenham Montague Orpen, Self-portrait, 1924?; oil on
panel, 79.1 x 64.8 cm. Given by the artist, 1928. 1486. © Fitzwilliam
Museum, University of Cambridge.
Peter Paillou the younger, Susannah Wedgwood, mother of Charles
Darwin, 1793; watercolour on ivory, 70 x 60 mm. Bequeathed by Dr
W. M. Keynes, 2009, received 2010. PD.26-2010. © Fitzwilliam
Museum, University of Cambridge.
Peter Paillou the younger, Susannah Wedgwood, mother of Charles
Darwin, 1793; verso. PD.26-2010. © Fitzwilliam Museum, University of
Cambridge.
Stanley Spencer, Self-portrait with Patricia Preece, 1937; oil on canvas,
61 x 91.2 cm. Bequeathed by Wilfrid Ariel Evill, 1963. PD.966-1963 ©
Estate of Stanley Spencer, 2003. All rights reserved. DACS.