# Portrait of Charlotte Bertie, née Warren, 4th Countess of Abingdon

- By: John I Smart (British, 1741–1811)
- Date: 1778
- Medium: graphite and wash on laid paper
- Classification: Portrait Miniature
- Dimensions: Sheet: 8.5 x 7.5 cm (3 3/8 x 2 15/16 in.); Unframed: 5.8 x 4.8 cm (2 5/16 x 1 7/8 in.)
- Culture: England, 18th century
- Credit line: The Edward B. Greene Collection
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/1941.572)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/cma/1941.572/1941.572_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 if 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. G. C. Williamson was the first to suggest that Smart’s sketches were well known and that they were preparatory studies for the painted miniatures. Williamson listed the names of sitters from the sketches known to him at the time, and they included Lady Abingdon. Here, Lady Abingdon’s head and shoulders face right. Her brown hair is dressed high on her head, and a strand of pearls is woven through the left side of her coiffure. A veil descends from the top of her head, past her shoulders. She has gray eyes. Compared to his…