Portrait of a Woman, Said to Be Lady Dering

Smart is thought to have been born near Norwich. In his youth he finished second to Richard Cosway (see 62.49) in a competition held by the Society of Arts in 1755, and he has held that place ever since. Smart's miniatures bear dates from 1760, and he had an extensive clientele. He arrived in India in 1785 and worked there until 1795. He had been a director of the Society of Artists, which had continued in opposition to the Royal Academy. By the time of his return to England, the society was defunct, and Smart exhibited at the Royal Academy until his death in London in 1811. The scope of Smart's art can be studied in a remarkable collection of fifty-one miniatures, one signed and dated for each year from 1760 until 1810, which was given to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, by Mr. and Mrs. John W. Starr (John Smart—Miniaturist, exh. cat., Kansas City, 1966).

The sitter was identified as Lady Dering in the Christie's sale catalogue of 1914 (see Provenance). Deborah Winchester (1745–1818) married Sir Edward Dering, sixth baronet, as his second wife in 1765. This miniature, showing an older woman in the costume of about 1775, almost certainly does not represent her. A miniature portrait by George Engleheart, said to represent her when young, was sold at Christie's, June 26, 1980, no. 63, ill. There is no resemblance. Daphne Foskett (John Smart: The Man and His Miniatures, London, 1964, p. 66) lists Lady Dering (née Deborah Winchester), second wife of Sir Edward Dering, sixth baronet, as a sitter to Smart.

[2016; adapted from Reynolds and Baetjer 1996]

Inscription: Inscribed (upper right, in pencil): (?)144

sale, Christie's, London, May 28, 1914, no. 35 (with 59.23.75–77, 79), for £27.6 to Holman; F. A. Holman, London (from 1914); Alexandrine Sinsheimer, New York (until d. 1958)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "European Miniatures in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," November 5, 1996–January 5, 1997, no. 140.

Graham Reynolds with the assistance of Katharine Baetjer. European Miniatures in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1996, pp. 13, 136, no. 140, ill., doubt the identification of the sitter as Deborah Winchester, second wife of Sir Edward Dering; see no resemblance to a miniature of this sitter by George Engleheart (sold, Christie's, London, June 26, 1980, no. 63, ill.); date the costume to about 1775.