John Smart’s early works, made between 1760 and 1785, often depict members of the rising merchant and military classes. These portraits exhibit a charming, naïve simplicity, with the earliest examples exhibiting mask-like faces and dark, beady eyes, as evidenced in portraits of Reverend Richard Sutton Yates and Elizabeth Maria Yates, and a softer palette, unlike the jewel tones of his later work. In many of these early pieces, sitters appear against an olive-brown background and have a pale blush on their cheeks, which becomes ruddier in his later portraits.
By the mid-1770s, Smart’s portraits began to show more individuality and meticulous attention to detail. He employed a densely stippling: Producing a gradation of light and shade by drawing or painting small points, larger dots, or longer strokes. application of paint, building layers to create a three-dimensional effect. The faces in these works are particularly well defined, often worked over a blue-gray ground around the eyes, mouth, and nose. By the mid-1780s, his sitters, often adorned with towering, powdered hairstyles, reflect the height of contemporary fashion. During this first phase of Smart’s career, his miniatures typically measured about 1 1/2 inches high until around 1775, when they grew to two inches until about 1790.
Although Smart was still refining his style, his growing confidence and desire for recognition are evident in his consistent use of initials and dates on all his miniatures.
doi: 10.37764/8322.8.1505