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Although undated (likely through lack of space), this portrait would appear from the costume to have been painted shortly after the arrival of John Smart in Madras.

Smart was already an artist well-known to the Townley family who originally had this miniature in their possession. Smart carefully cultivated members of the East India Company based in London prior to his ten year stint in India between 1785 and 1795. In 1782 he had painted Eleanor Hucks, later Mrs Townley Ward, a daughter of William Hucks of Knaresborough, who was considered one of the most beautiful women of the late 18th century.

It is not known which member of the Townley family this portrait represents but they were likely a member of the East India Company. Wearing a fashionable scarlet coat in the guise of a military uniform, the heat of the Indian weather can be seen in the sheen on sitter’s face. Even on this small scale, Smart’s observational powers are astonishing.

Smart appears to have been asked for more miniatures destined for a ring setting in India than during his time in London. An example recently on view at the Holburne Museum in Bath shows Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah, Nawab of Arcot and Prince of the Carnatic (1717- 1795), by Smart, mounted in a gold ring. The Nawab (or ‘Nabob’ as the British would have called him at the time), was the Muslim ruler of the Carnatic region of south India from 1749 to his death in October 1795.[1] He painted the ruler several times on this scale and this may have encouraged British patrons to commission similar works, although ring miniatures remain very rare in his oeuvre.

[1] For a fuller description see https://www.holburne.org/new-miniature-portrait-in-the-posnett-gallery/.