The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 20, 2024

Portrait of a Woman

Portrait of a Woman

1790s
(British, 1763–1837)
England, 18th century
watercolor on ivory in a period gold frame
Framed: 8.4 x 6.8 cm (3 5/16 x 2 11/16 in.); Sight: 7.1 x 6 cm (2 13/16 x 2 3/8 in.)
The Edward B. Greene Collection 1943.649
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

The miniature remains in its original gold frame, which has a curl of dark brown hair over blue glass on the back.

Description

This sitter has curly hair falling around her neck and into which are woven two pearl ornaments. She wears a plain, low-neck white dress. Usually made of lightweight cotton muslin and high-waisted, this type of dress became popular at the end of the eighteenth century and was intended to refer to classical antiquity. Similar garments are worn by many of the female sitters depicted by Andrew Plimer during this period. The background is a blue-gray sky with prominent gray crosshatching. This miniature is an accomplished example of Plimer’s work, with the sitter’s features soft but individualized and not given over to the doll-like caricature that appears in the artist’s other portraits of this date. The work is unsigned, as was typical for Plimer at this time.
  • 1929
    (Sale: Christie's London, November 1929).
    -1930
    (Leo Schidlof (1886-1966), Paris, France, sold to Edward B. Greene).
    1930-1943
    Edward B. Greene (1878-1957), Cleveland, OH, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art
    1943-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Cleveland Museum of Art. Portrait Miniatures: The Edward B. Greene Collection. Cleveland OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1951 Reproduced: p. 29, no. 28, pl. XXI archive.org
    Cleveland Museum of Art, and Alan Chong. European & American Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art: A Summary Catalogue. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993. p. 301
    Korkow, Cory, and Dario Robleto. Disembodied: Portrait Miniatures and Their Contemporary Relatives. 2013. Mentioned: p.83
    Korkow, Cory, and Jon L. Seydl. British Portrait Miniatures: The Cleveland Museum of Art. 2013. Cat. no. 55, pp. 222-223
  • Disembodied: Portrait Minatures and their Contemporary Relatives. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 10, 2013-February 16, 2014).
    Main Gallery Rotation (Gallery 202), The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (January 5, 2009 - April 6, 2009).
  • {{cite web|title=Portrait of a Woman|url=false|author=Andrew Plimer|year=1790s|access-date=20 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1943.649