When the miniature painter Ozias Humphry asked his fiancée to send a miniature of herself to him in India he asked specifically that she choose John Smart. Smart was about to arrive in India to set up as Humphry's rival, and it is likely that Humphry wanted to assess the competition. His reaction on receiving Smart's portrait somewhat critically sums up Smart's style, describing it as ‘extremely like’, her features rendered with ‘exactness’ but ‘certainly without any flattery’ and, he thought, ‘without air, or any grace in the disposition of it’.

This self portrait by Smart well illustrates those qualities that Humphry saw as defects but others clearly felt to be virtues. The modelling of the face is so precise, the concentration on the features so marked, that one can imagine Smart’s reputation for catching a likeness was deserved. Smart was a sober, quiet man, one who offered his clients direct honest facsimiles of their features. He has here painted himself in exactly that way.