British Portrait Miniatures: Tokens of Love and Loss

Horace Hone, Portrait of a Woman, 1786, watercolour on ivory in a ormolum frame, Cleveland Museum of Art.

Exchanged as personal mementos or as signs of political allegiance, portrait miniatures first appeared in the French and English courts of the 1520s. Evolved from the art of medieval illuminated manuscripts, miniatures provided a less expensive and more personal alternative to traditional full-scale portraiture. Portrait miniatures were portable luxury objects treasured by their owners both for the cherished portrait and the precious materials from which they were crafted. These might include gold, enamel, diamonds, and locks of human hair.

As this exhibition reveals, their small scale and the fact that people often wore them as jewelry and carried them on their person conveys a different type of intimacy than larger scale portraits. Sitters are often depicted more informally and with the gaze of a particular loved one in mind. Miniatures remained popular for nearly three centuries. The advent of photography in 1839 offered a more cost-effective method of capturing a keepsake likeness, and the portrait miniature faded from fashion. 

Tokens of Love and Loss

The abundance of portrait miniatures produced in the late 1700s and early 1800s signaled their importance within the emotional and social fabric of the time. Miniatures functioned within the rituals of grief and mourning or remembrance. Their small scale and the fact that people often wore them as jewelry or carried them on their person conveys a different type of intimacy than larger-scale portraits.