# Portrait of Anna Maria Woolf, née Smart

- By: John I Smart (British, 1741–1811)
- Date: c. 1785
- Medium: graphite and wash on laid paper
- Classification: Portrait Miniature
- Dimensions: Framed: 9.1 x 7.8 cm (3 9/16 x 3 1/16 in.); Unframed: 6.7 x 5.4 cm (2 5/8 x 2 1/8 in.)
- Culture: England, 18th century
- Credit line: The Edward B. Greene Collection
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/1941.564)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/cma/1941.564/1941.564_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Although it is impossible to say whether or not it was always part of the artist’s process to execute a preparatory sketch prior to painting each miniature, we do know that John Smart retained many hundreds of these sketches. A group of preparatory sketches—of which this portrait is one—descended through the Smirke family after Smart’s daughter Sarah gave a sketchbook containing preparatory portrait studies to her friend Mary Smirke, sister of the celebrated Victorian architect Sydney Smirke. This book was probably broken up around 1877 when it was divided between Sydney’s daughters Mary Jemmett and Mrs. Lange, whose portions were both sold at auction in 1928. This portrait was assigned the historically colorful but fictitious title of “Duchess Christina” at some point after memory of its true identity had been lost. Giving illustrious titles to portraits of unknown sitters was a popular strategy adopted by dealers during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, often applied to miniature portraits and, in particular, to Smart’s sketches of women. Here, the sitter’s head is turned slightly to her left. She has dark brown eyes, rosy cheeks, and long, wavy dark hair falling below…