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Portrait of a Man

George Engleheartc. 1800

The Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland, United States

This work dates to around 1800, when George Engleheart was in the mature stage of his career. The sitter wears a blue coat with brass buttons over a yellow waistcoat and high white collar with ruffles. The initials W.A. on the back of the case probably identify the sitter, but Engleheart’s fee book records only his sitter’s surname in most instances, so it is impossible to determine if this portrait is among those numerous sitters with an A surname. The meticulous construction of the elaborate case and the nature of its components—gold, enamel, and diamonds—indicates that it is probably original.
The gold initials on the bordered, blue enamel back are encircled with braided brown hair. The twenty-four brilliant-cut diamonds are genuine, though paste diamonds were becoming more widely available during this period. When this work entered Cleveland’s collection in the 1940s, the cost of reproducing the frame was noted in curatorial records to be 20,000 to 25,000 francs, according to the dealer Leo Schidlof. It is the only miniature from the Greene collection whose setting was evaluated in such a way.

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  • Title: Portrait of a Man
  • Creator: George Engleheart (British, 1752-1829)
  • Date Created: c. 1800
  • Physical Dimensions: Framed: 8.7 x 7.4 cm (3 7/16 x 2 15/16 in.); Unframed: 7.7 x 6.2 cm (3 1/16 x 2 7/16 in.)
  • Provenance: Benjamin Nathan, London, England, (Leo Schidlof (1886-1966), Paris, France), Edward B. Greene (1878-1957), Cleveland, OH, gifted to the Cleveland Museum of Art, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Type: Portrait Miniature
  • Rights: CC0
  • External Link: https://clevelandart.org/art/1941.556
  • Medium: watercolor on ivory, in a later gold, enamel, and diamond frame
  • Fun Fact: Braided brown hair is glazed on the back of this miniature.
  • Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
  • Culture: England, 18th century
  • Credit Line: The Edward B. Greene Collection
  • Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
  • Accession Number: 1941.556
The Cleveland Museum of Art

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