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Source Description
This unknown sitter has greenish-gray eyes and curly brown hair falling to the back of her neck. She wears a white lace-bordered mob cap with a bow at the top and ruffle under the chin. Her brown dress of dotted Swiss cotton has a narrow white collar. Handwoven during this period, dotted Swiss was a delicate fabric used for summer dresses. Both the Swiss dot gown and the mob cap give the sitter a casual, country air at odds with the approaching vogue for dressing in a style more classically inspired. The background sky is light blue and gray, with crosshatching increasingly worked increasingly close to the figure. The color palette is confined to browns and muddy blues. This miniature, painted close to 1800, is a charming example of Andrew Plimer’s doll aesthetic, seen in the sitter’s round face, tiny mouth, and large eyes. Plimer was an extremely prolific artist, which helps account for the fact that many of his female sitters look alike.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
120837
label
Portrait of a Woman
core
obj
dtoType
object
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
120837
contentType
object
title
Portrait of a Woman
description
This unknown sitter has greenish-gray eyes and curly brown hair falling to the back of her neck. She wears a white lace-bordered mob cap with a bow at the top and ruffle under the chin. Her brown dress of dotted Swiss cotton has a narrow white collar. Handwoven during this period, dotted Swiss was a delicate fabric used for summer dresses. Both the Swiss dot gown and the mob cap give the sitter a casual, country air at odds with the approaching vogue for dressing in a style more classically inspired. The background sky is light blue and gray, with crosshatching increasingly worked increasingly close to the figure. The color palette is confined to browns and muddy blues. This miniature, painted close to 1800, is a charming example of Andrew Plimer’s doll aesthetic, seen in the sitter’s round face, tiny mouth, and large eyes. Plimer was an extremely prolific artist, which helps account for the fact that many of his female sitters look alike.
date
late 1790s
rights
CC0
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
wikidata
Q80016493
creators
3718
genreSpecific
Portrait Miniature
imageCount
1
source
import
dimensionsRaw
Framed: 8.5 x 7.2 cm (3 3/8 x 2 13/16 in.); Sight: 8 x 6.5 cm (3 1/8 x 2 9/16 in.)
cul
England, 18th -19th century
accession
1941.561
Source extras
tec
watercolor on ivory in a gold frame with glazed reverse
tombstone
Portrait of a Woman , late 1790s. Andrew Plimer (British, 1763–1837). Watercolor on ivory in a gold frame with glazed reverse; framed: 8.5 x 7.2 cm (3 3/8 x 2 13/16 in.); sight: 8 x 6.5 cm (3 1/8 x 2 9/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Edward B. Greene Collection, 1941.561
collection
P - British before 1800
didYouKnow
A sticker attached to the back says “Countess Orford"; however, the sitter cannot be her since the Earl of Orford died without issue in 1797 and the title expired with his death.
citations
citation
Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>Portrait Miniatures </em>; <em>The Edward B. Greene Collection.</em> Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1951.
page_number
Reproduced: p. 29, no. 30, pl. XXII
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. 300
citation
Korkow, Cory, and Dario Robleto.<em> Disembodied: Portrait Miniatures and Their Contemporary Relatives</em>. 2013.
page_number
Mentioned: p.83, Reproduced: p.76
citation
Korkow, Cory, and Jon L. Seydl.<em> British Portrait Miniatures: The Cleveland Museum of Art. </em>2013.
page_number
Cat. no. 57, pp. 226-228
creditline
The Edward B. Greene Collection
updatedAt
2026-05-29 06:13:49.136000
sourceId
120837
dept
European Painting and Sculpture
coll
P - British before 1800
med
watercolor on ivory in a gold frame with glazed reverse
creatorTags
male
thumbnail_url
image_url
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
c33cd1377a3c4f70