Adam Buck
Portrait of a Woman

ArtistIrish, 1759–1833
CultureIrish
Titles
  • Portrait of a Woman
Date1805
MediumWatercolor on ivory, gilt, and glass
DimensionsOverall: 3 1/8 × 2 3/4 in. (7.9 × 7 cm)
Credit LineThe Rienzi Collection, bequest of Caroline A. Ross
Object number2005.1631
Non exposé

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Department
Rienzi
Description

Irish artist Adam Buck was deeply interested in classical Greek and Roman vase painting. To give a Neoclassical feeling to this miniature, his subject is shown in elegant profile on a draped chaise.


The vividly colored, almost stormy sky, balances the cool sensuality of the languid figure. The woman in this portrait wears the revealing neoclassical attire made popular at Napoleon´s court. Her sleeveless white gown, held at the shoulder with a Wedgwood cameo brooch, and her loose gather of curls à l´antique, were the height of fashion in the early 1800s.


 


Provenance[Earle D. Vandekar, New York, Collection of Edward Grosvenor Paine, Primrose Plantation, Oxford, lot 19]; purchased by Caroline Ross, October 15, 1996; bequeathed to MFAH, 2005.
Exhibition History"Love Tokens: Portrait Miniatures from the Caroline A. Ross Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, November 3, 2007-March 3, 2008.

"Ireland: Art on a World Stage, 1690-1840," Art Institute of Chicago, March 17–June 7, 2015

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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