Portrait of a Gentleman
Unidentified
ca. 1850
Medium
Painting-Miniature
Classification
Painting-Miniature
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. C. H. Roper
Accession Number
1963.11.6
Tags
bust
About this artwork
The gentleman in this miniature embodies the nineteenth-century middle class. The elaborate cravats and collars of the first few decades in the nineteenth century gave way to this “uniform” of a bourgeois gentleman, groomed and sitting stiffly for his portrait. The leaf-patterned frame suggests that this miniature was painted for the man’s wife or sweetheart, and if so, the sitter would have wanted to present himself as a suitable “catch.”
About the Artist
Unidentified ( ) · –