MINIATURE painting is ‘a thing apart from all other painting and drawing’ in showing ‘those lovely graces, witty smilings, and those stolen glances which suddenly like lightning pass’. So said Nicholas Hilliard (about 1547–1619), past master of the art.
Miniature, in this sense, does not necessarily mean small; rather, it describes a specific technique: detached portraits painted in water- or body colour on card or vellum by illuminators, or ‘limners’. The word derives from the Latin miniare, meaning to illuminate a document with minium or red lead. Post-Reformation limners no longer had a market for religious texts, but in Flanders and then France and England they found that portraits were in increasing demand. These were often very small indeed, but whatever size they may be, they are still known as miniatures.
The first portrait miniature is
