1794
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Dominant colour
Portrait of a Woman is a 1794 unspecified by Andrew Plimer, a British Romanticism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
A woman in a dotted cotton dress looks straight at you. Her lace cap ties under her chin, and her greenish-gray eyes stand out against soft shadows. This dress fabric—called dotted Swiss—was handwoven and meant for warm days. The cap and simple collar feel relaxed, like country clothes, even though fancy styles were about to change. The artist painted her in a way that makes her feel close, almost like a friend. To see how other British artists showed everyday people in the same era, look up england, 18th -19th century.
This unknown sitter has greenish-gray eyes and curly brown hair falling to the back of her neck. She wears a white lace-bordered mob cap with a bow at the top and ruffle under the chin. Her brown dress of dotted Swiss cotton has a narrow white collar. Handwoven during this period, dotted Swiss was a delicate fabric used for summer dresses. Both the Swiss dot gown and the mob cap give the sitter a casual, country air at odds with the approaching vogue for dressing in a style more classically inspired. The background sky is light blue and gray, with crosshatching increasingly worked…
A sticker attached to the back says “Countess Orford"; however, the sitter cannot be her since the Earl of Orford died without issue in 1797 and the title expired with his death.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Andrew Plimer (baptized 29 December 1763 – 29 January 1837) was a British artist, whose brother was Nathaniel Plimer, also a painter of miniatures.
See the richer artist page
