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Portrait of Samuel Butler
Bernard Lens (British, 1681–1740)
c. 1715–20
- Medium
- watercolor on ivory in a period metal frame
- Classification
- Portrait Miniature
- Dimensions
- Framed: 4.5 x 3.7 cm (1 3/4 x 1 7/16 in.); Sight: 4.5 x 3.5 cm (1 3/4 x 1 3/8 in.)
- Culture
- England, early 18th century
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- The Edward B. Greene Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Bernard Lens III was the most renowned member of an artist dynasty. His namesake father was a printmaker, his grandfather a painter, and two of his own sons became artists. Lens III was a critical figure in miniature painting as the art form transitioned away from painting on vellum. During the first decade of the eighteenth century, he established ivory as the primary miniature support in Britain, probably having seen the pioneering work of Rosalba Carriera (1675–1757) brought to England from Venice during the flowering of the Grand Tour. The earliest known miniatures by Lens were painted on vellum around 1707, with examples on ivory appearing shortly thereafter. Lens spent his career in London, Bristol, and Bath while also traveling to the country estates of his influential patrons. He was painter to kings George I and George II, as well as drawing instructor to princesses Mary and Louise, the Duke of Cumberland, and Horace Walpole (1717–1797). The sitter, Samuel Butler, turns slightly to the left and has brown eyes. A small portion of his dull red coat is visible, and he wears a white lace cravat twisted around his neck in a loose knot—an essential element of a gentleman’s…
