JOHN SMART - A Gentleman, traditionally identified as Mr. Ridley, wearing a blue jacket, with lace shirt and white waistcoat embroidered with flowers and gold thread

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A Gentleman, traditionally identified as Mr. Ridley, wearing a blue jacket, with lace shirt and white waistcoat embroidered with flowers and gold thread

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JOHN SMART

A Gentleman, traditionally identified as Mr. Ridley, wearing a blue jacket, with lace shirt and white waistcoat embroidered with flowers and gold thread

The Limner Company : Portrait Miniature

Date circa 1770s

Medium Watercolour on ivory

Dimension 4.5 cm (1³/₄ inches)

Although it was Smart's practice to sign and date every miniature, this may have been an unfinished work, dating to the later 1770s. Other alternatives may be that this was a secondary version or unwanted by the client. Intriguingly, there is an (unphotographed) sketch held by Norfolk Museums Service by Smart of a ‘Mr. Ridley’ which may be the basis for this miniature. There was also an engraver named William Ridley (1764-1838) working in India at the same time as John Smart – although the sitter would be too old in the late 1770s to be the same person, they may have been related.

The detailed gold thread and delicate floral embroidery on the sitter's waistcoat are typical of Smart's painstaking attention to detail and ability to convey texture in watercolour.

Date: circa 1770s

Medium: Watercolour on ivory

Dimension: 4.5 cm (1³/₄ inches)

Provenance: Sotheby's, London, 6 June 1996, lot 39 (as ‘Mr. Ridley');
Karin Henninger-Tavcar (as ‘Mr. Ridley');
Private Collection, Germany;
Private Collection, UK.

Literature: Probably Foskett, 1964, p.73
Philip Mould & Co., London ‘John Smart; A Genius Magnified’, Emma Rutherford; Lawrence Hendra; Lindsay Stainton; Haydn Williams, 2014, pp.30-31

Exhibition: Philip Mould, London ‘John Smart; A Genius Magnified’, Emma Rutherford; Lawrence Hendra; Lindsay Stainton; Haydn Williams, 2014, no. 9

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