Portrait of a Man
Medium
watercolor on ivory in a gold frame with blue and white enamel
Dimensions
unframed: 5 × 4 cm · framed: 5.9 × 5 cm
Classification
Portrait Miniature
Department
European Painting and Sculpture
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
The Edward B. Greene Collection
Accession Number
1942.1137
Tags
About this artwork
Painted during the early part of Richard Cosway’s mature career, this portrait of an unknown man exhibits the artist’s characteristic proportionality, with head enlarged in relation to the shoulders and eyes enlarged in relation to the rest of the face. The effect is to draw the viewer’s attention to the sitter’s eyes, which heightens the already intimate experience of looking at a miniature. This young sitter wears a high collar popular in the late 1780s and has powdered his hair, worn en queue...