Portrait miniature

A portrait miniature is a miniature portrait painting, usually executed in gouache or watercolor.

Portrait miniatures began to flourish in 16th-century Europe and the art was practiced during the 17th and 18th centuries. It was especially valuable in introducing people to each other over distances; a nobleman proposing the marriage of his daughter might send a courier with her portrait to visit potential suitors. Soldiers and sailors might carry miniatures of their loved ones while travelling, or a wife might keep one of her husband while he was away.

The first miniaturists used watercolor to paint on stretched vellum, but in the 18th century, miniatures were also painted on ivory and enamel. As small in size as 40 mm × 30 mm (1½ in × 1¼ in), portrait miniatures were often used as personal mementos or as jewelry or snuff box covers.

In the second half of the 19th century, the development of daguerreotypes and photographs contributed to the decline in popularity of the miniatures.

England, 16th and 17th centuries

The portrait miniature developed from the miniature of illuminated manuscripts, which had been superseded for the purposes of book illustration by printing techniques such as engraving.

The first portrait miniaturist about whom anything definite is known was Nicholas Hilliard (c. 1537–1619), whose work partakes of the characteristics of illuminated manuscripts. The colors are opaque; gold is used to heighten the effect; while the paintings are on card. They are often signed, and have frequently also a Latin motto upon them. Hilliard worked for a while in France, and he is probably identical with the painter alluded to in 1577 as Nicholas Belliart. Hilliard was succeeded by his son Lawrence Hillard (died 1640). His technique was similar to that of his father, but bolder, and his miniatures richer in color.

Isaac Oliver and his son Peter Oliver succeeded Hilliard. Isaac (c. 1560–1617) is said to have been the pupil of Hilliard and Federigo Zuccaro. Peter (1594–1647) was the pupil of Isaac. The two men were the earliest to give roundness and form to the faces they painted. They signed their best works in monogram, and painted not only very small miniatures, but larger ones measuring as much as 10 in × 9 in (250 mm × 230 mm). They copied for Charles I of England on a small scale many of his famous pictures by the old masters.

At about the same date Balthazar Gerbier, George Jamesone, Penelope Cleyn and her brothers, were workers in the art. John Hoskins (died 1664) was followed by a son of the same name, who was known to have been living in 1700, since a miniature signed by him and bearing that date is in the Pierpont Morgan collection, representing James FitzJames, 1st Duke of Berwick.

Samuel Cooper (1609–1672) was a nephew and student of the elder Hoskins, and is considered the greatest English portrait miniaturist. He spent much of his time in Paris and Holland, and very little is known of his career. His work has a superb breadth and dignity, and has been well called life-size work in little. His portraits of the men of the Puritan epoch are remarkable for their truth to life and strength of handling. He painted upon card, chicken skin and vellum, and on two occasions upon thin pieces of mutton bone. The use of ivory was not introduced until long after his time. His work is frequently signed with his initials, generally in gold, and very often with the addition of the date.

Other miniaturists of this period include Alexander Cooper (died 1660), who painted a series of portraits of the children of the king and queen of Bohemia; David des Granges (1611–1675); Richard Gibson (1615–1690); Susannah-Penelope Rosse, his daughter, who imitated the work of Samuel Cooper, and Charles Beale and Mary Beale. They are followed by such artists as Lawrence Crosse (died 1724), Gervase Spencer (died 1763), Bernard Lens, Nathaniel Hone and Jeremiah Meyer, the latter two notable in connection with the foundation of the Royal Academy. The workers in black lead (plumbago, as it was called at that time) must not be overlooked, especially David Loggan, William Faithorne, White, Thomas Forster and John Faber. They drew with exquisite detail and great effect on paper or vellum.

England, 18th and 19th centuries

The 18th century produced a great number of miniature painters, of whom Richard Cosway (1742–1821) is the most famous. His works are of great beauty, and executed with a dash and brilliance which no other artist equalled. His best work was done about 1799. His portraits are generally on ivory, although occasionally he worked on paper or vellum, and he produced a great many full-length pencil drawings on paper, in which he slightly tinted the faces and hands, and these he called "stayned drawings". Cosway's finest miniatures are signed on the back; there is but one genuine signed on the face; very few bear even his initials on the front.

George Engleheart (1750–1829) painted 4,900 miniatures, and his work is stronger and more impressive than that of Cosway; it is often signed E or G.E. Andrew Plimer (1763–1837) was a pupil of Cosway, and both he and his brother Nathaniel Plimer produced some lovely portraits. The brightness of the eyes, wiriness of the hair, exuberance of color, combined with forced chiaroscuro and often very inaccurate drawing, are characteristics of Andrew Plimer's work. John Smart (1741–1811) was in some respects the greatest of the 18th century miniaturists. His work excelled in refinement, power and delicacy; its silky texture and elaborate finish, and the artists love for a brown background, distinguish it. Other notable painters were Ozias Humphry (1742–1810), Samuel Shelley (c. 1750–1808), whose best pictures are groups of two or more persons, William Wood, a Suffolk artist (1768–1808), Henry Edridge (1769–1821), Richard Crosse, John Bogle, and Edward Dayes.

In the 19th century John Cox Dillman Engleheart (1784-1862), nephew of George; Andrew Robertson (1777–1845), George Beaumont, William Behnes, Thomas Frank Heaphy and Anne Mee must be mentioned. Sir Thomas Lawrence painted a few miniatures, and Henry Raeburn some in his early days; but the art maybe said to have died out with Sir William Ross, although some works by Sir Edwin Henry Landseer in this form are in existence, some small paintings of flowers by George Lance, and one portrait by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Towards the end of the 19th century came a revival of miniature painting, but without producing any masters of the same calibre. Alyn Williams amongst Englishmen, Johann Waldemar von Rehling-Quistgaard, the talented Danish miniature painter, and Bess Norris, an Australian artist, deserve mention.

France

The earliest French miniature painters were Jean Clouet (died c. 1540), his son François Clouet, Jean Fouquet, Jean Perreal and others; but of their work in portraiture we have little trace at the present day, although there are many portraits and a vast number of drawings attributed to them with more or less reason. The seven portraits in the manuscript of the Gallic War (Bibliothque Nationale) are assigned to the eider Clouet; and to them may be added a fine work, in the Pierpont Morgan collection, representing the Marschal de Brissac. Following these men we find Renard de Saint-André (1613–1677), and Jean Cotelle; the fine draughtsmen Etienne Picart; and then, later on, we know of miniatures by Nicolas Largillire, François Boucher, Jean-Marc Nattier, and Jean-Germain Drouais; but the greatest names are those of Peter Adolph Hall of Sweden, François Dumont of France, and Friedrich-Heinrich Füger of Austria. The tiny pictures painted by the von Blarenberghe family are by many persons grouped as miniatures, and some of the later French artists, as Pierre-Paul Prudhon and Constance Meyer, executed miniature portraits, while others whose names might be mentioned were Joseph Werner (1637–1710), Rosalba Carriera (1675–1757), Pasquier, Carlo Marsigli, Garriot, Sicardi and Festa.

The most popular artists in France, however, were Jean-Baptiste Jacques Augustin (1759–1832) and Jean-Baptiste Isabey (1767–1855). Their portraits of Napoleon and his court are exceedingly fine, and perhaps no other Frenchman painted miniatures so well as did Augustin.

Spain

The Spanish painter Francisco Goya is known to have executed a few miniatures.

Materials

Miniatures are painted in oil, watercolor and enamel, but chiefly in watercolor. Many Dutch and German miniatures were painted in oil, and as a rule these are on copper; and there are portraits in the same medium, and often on the same material, attributed to many of the great Italian artists, notably those of the Bologna school. Samuel Cooper is said to have executed a few paintings in oil on copper.

From about 1650 onwards many fine miniatures were executed in enamel. Jean Petitot (1607–1691) was the greatest worker in this material, and painted his finest portraits in Paris for Louis XIV of France. His son succeeded him in the same profession. Other artists in enamel were Christian Friedrich Zincke (died 1767), Heinrich Hurter (1734–1799), David Liot, Paul Prieur, and Johann Melchior Dinglinger. Many of these artists were either Frenchmen or Swiss, but most of them visited England and worked there for a while. The greatest English enamel portrait painter was Henry Bone (1755–1839). A great collection of his small enamel reproductions of celebrated paintings is in Buckingham Palace.

The work of the 18th century on ivory is in watercolor. The use of ivory came into general adoption in the early part of the reign of William III of England, miniatures previous to that time having been painted on vellum, chicken-skin or cardboard, a few on the backs of playing cards, and many more on very thin vellum closely mounted on to playing cards.

References

J. L. Propert, History of Miniature Art, London, 1887.
G. C. Williamson, History of Portrait Miniatures, 1904.

External links

Art history | Portrait art | Miniature painting

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