Saturday, August 13, 2016

European Portrait Miniatures

French Painter
Portrait of Frederick V,  Elector Palatine, King of Bohemia
early 17th century
Victoria & Albert Museum

European portrait miniatures circulated for centuries in private hands before migrating to the museums that preserve them today. Many of the sitters are now unidentified and the artists unknown.  With non-famous subjects, the original circumstances behind the commission have probably been irrecoverably forgotten. Yet in their thousands, with a greater or smaller supply of facts attached, these floating artifacts survive.

Nicholas Hilliard
Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I
1572
National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)

John Hoskins
Portrait of Dr. Brian Walton, Theologian
1657
Metropolitan Museum of Art

attributed to Peter van Slingelandt
Portrait of an unknown man
ca. 1680
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Jeremiah Meyer
Portrait of an unknown woman
1780
Victoria & Albert Museum

Jean Clouet
Portrait of Charles de Cossé
ca. 1535
Metropolitan Museum of Art

John Smart
Portrait of an unknown Indian Gentleman
1789
Victoria & Albert Museum

Sophie Liénard
Portrait of an unknown woman
ca. 1840
Prado

Hans Holbein
Portrait of an unknown Englishman
ca. 1532-35
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Richard Cosway
Portrait of Anne Seymour Damer
1785
National Portrait Gallery. London

Christian Richter
Portrait of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough
early 18th century
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hans Holbein
Portrait of Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton
ca. 1535
Metropolitan Museum of Art

Charles Hayter
Wife and children of a purser of the East India Company
ca. 1800
Victoria & Albert Museum

Nathaniel Hone
Portrait of an unknown man
1765
National Portrait Gallery, London