English: John Smart (1742/43-1811)

Portrait of Mrs John Richardson, née Harriet Emma Burnaby

in white dress with frilled collar and green sash, gold-bordered white surcoat, white knotted scarf in her powdered curling hair

signed and dated JS 1794 I for India (lower right)

on ivory

oval, 3 in. (76 mm.) high, gold frame with bright-cut border, the reverse centred with gold initials HER on a woven hair ground, the reverse of the hair panel inscribed Charles Cuthbert. Madras. 15 Fy 1794

Harriet Emma Burnaby, daughter of Admiral Sir William Burnaby, Bt., married John Richardson. Other members of the family sat to John Smart for their portraits: her husband in 1794 and her sister Georgiana Grace, later Mrs Chamier, in 1786, also in India. These miniatures were sold alongside the present portrait, Christie's, London, 25 May 2004, lots 129 and 131. Her other sister Charlotte was painted twice by Smart: first in 1787, at the same time as her husband, Josias Dupre Porcher, sold Christie's, London, 14 February 1945, lot 79, and later Sotheby's, London, 15 June 1950, lot 17. The second, signed with the 'I' for India and dated 1788, was sold Sotheby's, London, 3 November 1958, lot 69, and later Sotheby's, London, 19 November 1984, lot 512.