# Portrait of a Gentleman

- By: Unidentified
- Date: ca. 1850
- Medium: watercolor on ivory
- Classification: Paintings
- Dimensions: sight 2 3/4 x 2 in. (7.0 x 5.1 cm)
- Credit line: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Catherine Walden Myer Fund
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=25074)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/bbdc7a40c61b9a5182d33f4b45e4cc3d.jpg
- Who can see it: Tweens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

This miniature shows the forceful, confident figure of a nineteenth-century businessman. During the 1850s, such men wore dark clothes to indicate their professionalism and sobriety. This sitter’s low collar and smaller necktie mark the shift from earlier high collars and elaborate cravats that identified men of wealth and leisure.