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Portrait of Lieutenant General Daniel Burr
John I Smart (British, 1741–1811)
1799
- Medium
- watercolor on ivory in a gold frame with glazed hair reverse
- Classification
- Portrait Miniature
- Dimensions
- Framed: 8.8 x 7.2 cm (3 7/16 x 2 13/16 in.); Sight: 8.4 x 6.8 cm (3 5/16 x 2 11/16 in.)
- Culture
- England, 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
Daniel Burr (1750–1828) is depicted here as colonel of the 10th Madras Native Infantry. He joined the East India Company in 1767 as a cadet, became an ensign in 1768, a colonel in 1797, and achieved the rank of major general in 1805. The work is signed and dated “JS / 1799,” indicating that John Smart painted Burr while the officer was back in England on furlough between July 30, 1798, and April 2, 1799. Diarist Joseph Farington noted in 1798 that Smart was charging 25 guineas for his portrait miniatures and making from £500 to £600 a year. By comparison, George Engleheart (1752–1829) during this period was charging 12 to 15 guineas for his portrait miniatures, and even in the 1780s, Richard Cosway (1742–1821) was known to charge between 20 and 30 guineas. This work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1799 (no. 784) as “Portrait of Colonel Burr.” It was formerly in the collection of Benjamin Nathan, a wealthy London goldsmith and diamond dealer whose heirs did not wish to retain the miniature and sold it upon his death. Here, Daniel Burr has a ruddy complexion, gray hair, and brown eyes. He wears a red military coat, with dull orange velvet facings, over a jabot with a high…
