- Artist
- Samuel Cooper 1609–1672
- Medium
- Watercolour on vellum
- Dimensions
- Frame, circular: 70 × 60 × 3 mm
- Collection
- Lent from a private collection 2012
On long term loan - Reference
- L02992
Summary
This miniature depicting future Court official Sir Thomas Smith is signed in monogram and dated, lower left: ‘SC. / 1667’. Painted in the early years of Charles II’s reign, its young sitter is depicted against a royal blue background in a luxurious silk robe, probably made of fabric imported from the Far East, at a time when Britain’s overseas trade links were expanding. The sitter is identified by an inscription on the back of the miniature’s case.
Samuel Cooper opened a studio in London in 1642, just as Civil War was breaking out. Nevertheless, his career flourished and he became the leading portrait-miniaturist of the mid- to late seventeenth century, with an international reputation. His most celebrated sitter of the Commonwealth years was Oliver Cromwell. Cooper was able to convey a powerful sense of naturalism, which was clearly admired by a wide range of sitters, and was commended by poets of the time. Following the Restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660, Charles II appointed Cooper his official miniature-painter (the ‘King’s limner’) and numerous miniatures by Cooper of the monarch and other Court figures survive.
Further reading
John Murdoch, Seventeenth-Century Miniatures in the Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London 1997, pp.115–72.
Alison Smith (ed.), Watercolour, exhibition catalogue, Tate Britain, London 2011, pp.52–5, reproduced p.55.
Karen Hearn
December 2011
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