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Source Description
The sitter's powdered hair is tied with a dark bow below the shoulders. He has gray eyes and wears a greenish-gray coat, white shirt, and cravat tied in a bow under his chin. The background is very pale, with ivory ground visible, but faintly light blue close to the head. Among the hallmarks of Nathaniel Plimer’s technique was the use of delicate stippling for the shadows of the face and the application of individual dots of paint to create the lower eyelashes. This portrait is probably the pendant to <a href="https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1941.562.2">1941.562.2</a>. The female portrait is slightly larger than the male, and both date from c. 1795, the date at which a British man would have worn his hair powdered and his cravat tied in a bow. It is impossible to know for certain if these unidentified sitters were married, but the fact that they are housed in identical frames, which date from the same period as the paintings, suggests that they are a pair. Although husbands and wives often commissioned portraits in miniature simultaneously, the pairs were frequently divided over time through inheritance, loss, breakage, or independent sale. Both miniatures are housed in identical, elaborate period gold frames with braided hairwork. The blue glass back of each has a plait of brown hair in its center. The hair incorporated into the framing of each miniature is approximately the same color, suggesting either that the couple had the same color hair or that the same hair was used in each frame. Traditionally, it was the hair of the sitter that was mounted with his or her miniature portrait. They are both unsigned, as was typical for Plimer’s works during this period.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
120839
label
Portrait of a Man
core
obj
dtoType
object
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
120839
contentType
object
title
Portrait of a Man
description
The sitter's powdered hair is tied with a dark bow below the shoulders. He has gray eyes and wears a greenish-gray coat, white shirt, and cravat tied in a bow under his chin. The background is very pale, with ivory ground visible, but faintly light blue close to the head. Among the hallmarks of Nathaniel Plimer’s technique was the use of delicate stippling for the shadows of the face and the application of individual dots of paint to create the lower eyelashes. This portrait is probably the pendant to <a href="https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1941.562.2">1941.562.2</a>. The female portrait is slightly larger than the male, and both date from c. 1795, the date at which a British man would have worn his hair powdered and his cravat tied in a bow. It is impossible to know for certain if these unidentified sitters were married, but the fact that they are housed in identical frames, which date from the same period as the paintings, suggests that they are a pair. Although husbands and wives often commissioned portraits in miniature simultaneously, the pairs were frequently divided over time through inheritance, loss, breakage, or independent sale. Both miniatures are housed in identical, elaborate period gold frames with braided hairwork. The blue glass back of each has a plait of brown hair in its center. The hair incorporated into the framing of each miniature is approximately the same color, suggesting either that the couple had the same color hair or that the same hair was used in each frame. Traditionally, it was the hair of the sitter that was mounted with his or her miniature portrait. They are both unsigned, as was typical for Plimer’s works during this period.
date
c. 1795
rights
CC0
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
wikidata
Q80016497
creators
3721
genreSpecific
Portrait Miniature
imageCount
1
source
import
dimensionsRaw
Framed: 9.2 x 7.7 cm (3 5/8 x 3 1/16 in.); Sight: 6.7 x 5.3 cm (2 5/8 x 2 1/16 in.)
cul
England, 18th century
accession
1941.562.1
Source extras
tec
watercolor on ivory in a period gold and hair frame
tombstone
Portrait of a Man, c. 1795. Nathaniel Plimer (British, 1757–1822). Watercolor on ivory in a period gold and hair frame; framed: 9.2 x 7.7 cm (3 5/8 x 3 1/16 in.); sight: 6.7 x 5.3 cm (2 5/8 x 2 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Edward B. Greene Collection, 1941.562.1
collection
P - British before 1800
formerAccessionNumbers
1941.562
didYouKnow
This piece has a companion in the collection, <a href="https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1941.562.2">1941.562.2</a>, although their relationship is unknown.
citations
citation
Cleveland Museum of Art, and Edward Belden Greene. <em>Portrait Miniatures ; The Edward B. Greene Collection</em>. 1951.
page_number
p. 29, no. 32, pl. XX
citation
Foskett, Daphne. <em>A Dictionary of British Miniature Painters</em>. London: Faber and Faber, 1972.
page_number
p 451
citation
Cleveland Museum of Art, and Alan Chong. <em>European & American Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art: A Summary Catalogue</em>. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993.
page_number
p. 301
citation
Korkow, Cory, and Dario Robleto.<em> Disembodied: Portrait Miniatures and Their Contemporary Relatives.</em> 2013.
page_number
Referenced: p.83
citation
Korkow, Cory, and Jon L. Seydl. <em>British Portrait Miniatures: The Cleveland Museum of Art. 20</em>13.
page_number
Cat. no. 53, pp. 215-217
citation
Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine</em>. Vol. 53 no. 06, November/December 2013
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: p. 6-7
creditline
The Edward B. Greene Collection
updatedAt
2026-05-29 06:13:51.936000
sourceId
120839
dept
European Painting and Sculpture
coll
P - British before 1800
med
watercolor on ivory in a period gold and hair frame
creatorTags
male
thumbnail_url
image_url
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
35d30df00388d509