The Art of Miniature

Before photography became commonplace in the 19th century, the art of miniature - tiny, elaborate, portable likenesses - were the dominant portrait style. This art form of small-scale portraits flourished from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century.

The first miniatures in the 16th and 17th centuries were executed in watercolor paint on stretched vellum and mounted on paper cards. In the 18th and 19th centuries watercolor on ivory became the standard. The shift of materials during this period was the result of ivory becoming more affordable and accessible. In addition, ivory offered more luminosity as well as a better depiction of flesh tones. The process of preparing the surface of ivory to be painted was also simpler than the one required to prepare vellum. Ivory therefore remained the most common substrate for portrait miniatures until the practice declined at the end of the 19th century.

Due to their small format, ranging in size from an inch to five or six inches in height, miniature portraits have an intimate quality which distinguishes them from large scale oil paintings. Portrait miniatures served therefore a different purpose and were to be held close and contemplated in private. In fact, miniatures could be housed in metal lockets worn by men and women as jewelry or carried in remembrance of loved ones who were far away or had passed. Miniatures could also be placed in frames or compact cases that would be displayed in the intimacy of the home and most commonly on bedside tables.

Silhouettes or Profiles

The Neill-Cochran House Museum houses another type of small portraiture in its collection that competed successfully with the portrait miniature, the silhouette. The cutting of “silhouettes” or “profiles” was a popular pastime in the 18th century and became fashionable as cheap and quick forms of small portraiture. Sittings took no more than five minutes and copies could easily be made from the original. Therefore, the silhouettes were commercially very successful.

The End of the Miniature Portrait: The Invention of Photomechanical Processes in the 19th Century

After the invention of the daguerreotype, the first-ever widely accessible form of photography in 1839, miniature painting became a lost art. Indeed, the former Metropolitan Museum curator Harry Wehle commented in 1927 : “The miniature in the presence of the photograph was like a bird before a snake; it was fascinated—even to the fatal point of imitation—then it was swallowed.” The daguerreotype perpetuated the miniature portrait’s intimate quality as tokens of affection or mementos. Both preserve collective history. The daguerreotype, however, also captures a moment in time. More than an artistic expression, the daguerreotype portrait is a documentation of reality.

Needlepoint Fire Screen

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Neill-Cochran House Museum

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