Portrait of Mrs. George Collier (18th century): Art, History and Details

Portrait of Mrs. George Collier (18th century) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Joshua Reynolds (British, 1723–1792).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Given to the Cleveland Museum in 1920 by the collector Jeptha H. Wade, this painting was thought to be an authentic work by Joshua Reynolds. However, after considerable study, the museum attributed it to a follower of Reynolds working in a similar style around the same time. This portrait depicts the wife of the captain (and later admiral) George Collier. The artist draws an analogy between this woman and Lesbia, a married woman who provided much artistic inspiration for the Roman poet Catullus (c. 84–c. 54 BC). The poet's writings document a love affair with Lesbia, and one poem in particular documents the death of the woman's beloved pet sparrow. The viewer can barely see the sparrow in this painting, since it lies on a table partially obscured by her right elbow. The muted colors evoke a sense of melancholy as the woman mourns with her head turned away from the viewer.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of Mrs. George Collier
• Date: 18th century
• Creator attribution: Joshua Reynolds (British, 1723–1792)
• Culture: England, 18th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 112 x 101 x 12 cm (44 1/8 x 39 3/4 x 4 3/4 in.); Unframed: 80 x 67.3 cm (31 1/2 x 26 1/2 in.)
• Collection: P - British before 1800
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1920.514

Collection credit

Gift of J. H. Wade

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Recent Changes in the Painting Galleries." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 5, no. 2/3 (1918): 22-27.
• "Important Recent Gifts." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 7, no. 10 (1920): 157-58.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1925.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.