Portrait of Mrs. George Collier

Cleveland Museum of Art

Portrait of Mrs. George Collier

Joshua ReynoldsLinkedCulture matchlcp-14c29b16a5a1

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

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.

LinkedCulture assembled this text from several fields of Cleveland Museum of Art’s catalogue record, so it is not the museum’s own wording as published. See “How LinkedCulture maps this record” below.

Cleveland Museum of Art’s catalogue record

Medium
oil on canvas
Credit Line
Gift of J. H. Wade
Type of artwork
Painting
Department
European Painting and Sculpture

Also in Cleveland Museum of Art’s record. The museum’s own label for these fields has not been confirmed yet, so each is named by its field in the museum’s data.

creation_date
18th century

Taken from LinkedCulture’s stored copy of Cleveland Museum of Art’s record. A fresh capture of the museum’s own record has not been made for this object yet.

What the image shows

A woman in a brown shawl and blue sash sits with her head turned slightly to the side.

Generated by LinkedCulture from the photograph alone, without the museum’s catalogue text (Qwen/Qwen2.5-VL-7B-Instruct), and not yet reviewed by a person. It describes the picture, not the object’s history, and it is not part of the museum’s record.

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The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata. The fields above are the museum’s, under its own labels. LinkedCulture’s derived fields are listed separately below and marked as ours.

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Open this page QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.sa6T8pSzoEHJb1q3.R6-2Y0K3uHtw9Jfk2uTBflXm5T4dQXrl-F5TmNGUtRs9OE9wENo-JsXr-dUN7Th_J7ZDIJK6XzaeEYuzm9OoAevOVU_W6pl0zdO-2puX0qXeEGdNQwxo1aINIYIFbjrDZtTJVG4Gfp2UE_WNX9kCe_0kfaEUHC73JbMLSyTRWHPkPzQfMIqsak3WxJOSaEhF-dFeXIvtsFOfYGuC_xe7YgJ8l6loamjbxgmXnbl5xIY_vmp1vVwniUJcZGWYWkG_UjmUzfWHI95hiVFvT_27YaIPEGUOT9VQ4MJWeAKOqN1GkrvPLwSee at Cleveland Museum of Art QR destination: https://linkedculture.org/q/q1.oUSEz-TowNvk6_ph.X2eIRq4oWjol6-vqRQvamEYJiHkqRsKDEId8u84sHcDE91BXtIRKNtpILEjEuIkRaK2a71R3wQXgTiZhV5yyj3a9lWgxsI6zFZmHKin_z_jhjl2LIWS1KK63np3xbvCFl5JdGxInQhZN0gLAT70UmDPHpBF93JWAbErbRhltW-a-FU-sn42MBnISVylXP1MlmOf_lqdJSwNy9rSQn4RoDSVFwtS8iUzESzbv4bTPmTdxhBkq25NjEyiVagE7AfdYobC_ErSzDCBCkpGqxUg4Be4_17r74JEazleMYy79gg
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Provenance & credit

As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.

Provenance
(possibly Mary Horneck Gwynn, sister in law of the sitter (1823) | Sir William W. Knighton, Hampshire (1864, Christie's, London sale 21 May, 1885, no. 457 | Mrs. Adelaide Ross | J. H. Wade, Cleveland (by 1913) | Possib;y Mrs. George Collier, possibly by inheritance to her sister-in-law, Mary Horneck Gwynn, | Possibly Mary Horneck Gwynn | William Wellesley Knighton, 2nd Bt., 1836-1855 (London, England, and Blendworth Lodge, Hampshire, England), upon his death, held in trust by the estate | Estate of William Wellesley Knighton, sold, Christie's, London, May 21, 1885, lot 457 | Mrs. Adelaide Ross (Stachelberg, New York) | Jeptha Homer Wade, 1857-1926 (Cleveland, Ohio), by gift to the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1920.
How LinkedCulture maps this record

To search objects from different museums together, LinkedCulture reads each museum’s record into a common set of fields. The values below are LinkedCulture’s, under LinkedCulture’s names. They are not Cleveland Museum of Art’s wording; the museum’s own record is shown above under its own labels.

Object ID
101852
Object Type
Painting
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Type of artwork” · copied as is
Creator
Joshua Reynolds
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creators (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · derived by LinkedCulture from the museum field · Artist-role creator's description with life dates removed.
Culture
England, 18th century
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Culture” · copied as is
Medium
oil on canvas
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Medium” · copied as is · Cleveland's 'technique' field holds materials.
Department
European Painting and Sculpture
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Department” · copied as is
Tags
  • male
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field tags (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · combined from several museum fields
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field artists_tags (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · combined from several museum fields
Credit Line
Gift of J. H. Wade
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Credit Line” · copied as is
Provenance
(possibly Mary Horneck Gwynn, sister in law of the sitter (1823) | Sir William W. Knighton, Hampshire (1864, Christie's, London sale 21 May, 1885, no. 457 | Mrs. Adelaide Ross | J. H. Wade, Cleveland (by 1913) | Possib;y Mrs. George Collier, possibly by inheritance to her sister-in-law, Mary Horneck Gwynn, | Possibly Mary Horneck Gwynn | William Wellesley Knighton, 2nd Bt., 1836-1855 (London, England, and Blendworth Lodge, Hampshire, England), upon his death, held in trust by the estate | Estate of William Wellesley Knighton, sold, Christie's, London, May 21, 1885, lot 457 | Mrs. Adelaide Ross (Stachelberg, New York) | Jeptha Homer Wade, 1857-1926 (Cleveland, Ohio), by gift to the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1920.
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field “Provenance” · copied as is
Date
18th century
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is
Begin Year
1700
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date_earliest (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is
End Year
1799
  • Cleveland Museum of Art field creation_date_latest (museum’s label not yet confirmed) · copied as is

The museum’s own record has not been captured for this object yet, so the museum fields shown above are limited to values LinkedCulture stored unchanged.

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Portrait of Mrs. George Collier

Aug 17, 2026 · Short

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Museum record

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