Miniature Painting

Miniature Painting, painting of pictures, usually portraits, on a small scale. The word miniature is derived from minium, the name of a red oxide of lead used during the Middle Ages for the decoration of sacred texts. The techniques developed in this art of illuminating manuscripts were later applied to the creation of many small portraits, known as miniatures. Miniature painters generally work in a microscopically minute technique, using thin, pointed brushes on such varied surfaces as the backs of playing cards, stretched chicken skin, vellum, metal, and ivory.

Miniature painting was highly developed in Asia at an early date. Before the 16th century Muslim artists of Persia, India, and Turkey were producing delicate, stylized miniatures. In Renaissance Europe, miniatures were used on jewelry and even on the inside of watch covers; such miniatures were often presented as gifts and souvenirs. The 16th-century German painter Hans Holbein the Younger was the first important representative of the art in Europe. In France, Jean and François Clouet painted a series of portraits, considered unexcelled in form and purity of color, of King Francis I and members of the court. Among other noted French exponents of the art were Nicolas de Largillière, Jean Marc Nattier, and Jean Baptiste Isabey.

Nicholas Hilliard, the earliest English exponent of miniature painting, executed portraits for Queen Elizabeth I. Isaac Oliver and Peter Oliver succeeded Hilliard, adding a fuller, more rounded modeling to their portraits. The work of Samuel Cooper is generally regarded as the finest expression of English miniature portrait painting. Ivory replaced vellum as the popular surface for miniature painters at the end of the 17th century.

The United States produced many notable miniature painters in the 18th century, including John Watson; James Peale, who executed well-known portraits of Martha and George Washington; and John Singleton Copley. Edward Greene Malbone is regarded as the most distinctive American miniature painter of his time.