[f. prec. + -SHIP.]
1. The rôle or part of a connoisseur; critical acquaintance with works of art or matters of taste; the sphere or realm of connoisseurs.
1749. Fielding, Tom Jones, XIII. v. Connoisseurship, painting, music, statuary.
1780. Mrs. Thrale, Lett. to Johnson, 28 April, in Boswell. This morning it was all connoisseurship; we went to see some pictures.
1845. Blackw. Mag., LVIII. 152. Commending In Connoisseurship’s jargon quaint and cold.
1865. Reader, 29 April, 478/2. At that time connoisseurship ignored the earlier schools of Italy.
2. The quality of being a connoisseur; proficiency as a connoisseur.
1754. Richardson, Grandison (1781), IV. xxxiii. 234. To see my Lord … showing his connoisseurship to his motionless admiring Wife.
1878. Black, Green Past., xxxii. 257. We began to pride ourselves on our connoisseurship.
attrib. 1791. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Remonstr., Wks. 1794, III. 103. Squinting with connoisseurship glances.
b. humorously as a personal title.
1761. Sterne, Tr. Shandy (1802), IV. vii. 61. Which [picture] your connoisseurship knows is so exquisitely imagined.
1818. Byron, Ch. Har., IV. liii. How well his connoisseurship understands The graceful bend.
