John Smart’s decade in India from 1785 to 1795 was highly productive. After years of carefully cultivating patrons with close ties to the city of Madras (modern-day Chennai), his reputation preceded him there. Smart established a studio on North Street in Fort St. George, Madras, and soon built a robust clientele among wealthy, sunburned British colonists—largely merchants and military officers affiliated with the Honourable East India Company (HEIC): A British joint-stock company founded in 1600 to trade in the Indian Ocean region. The company accounted for half the world’s trade from the 1750s to the early 1800s, including items such as cotton, silk, opium, and spices. It later expanded to control large parts of the Indian subcontinent by exercising military and administrative power. and their families—and Indian nobility like the Nawab of Arcot.
Miniatures from this period are signed with an I for India. As Smart’s confidence swelled, he gradually expanded the size of his miniatures from just under two inches, when he arrived in India, to three inches, after his return to London. This heightened self-assurance, magnified by the reception of his work in India, is also reflected in the magisterial drawing he produced of himself in 1793, the largest of his nine known self-portraits, unusually posed in profile with his back to the viewer. In India, Smart developed his mature style, characterized by brilliant color, anatomical accuracy, and insightful likenesses.
doi: 10.37764/8322.8.1569