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| attributed to Levina Teerlinc Portrait miniature of unknown young woman 1549 watercolor on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Levina Teerlinc Portrait miniature of Katherine Grey, Countess of Hertford ca. 1555-60 watercolor on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
"Lady Katherine Grey was one of two sisters of the martyred Lady Jane Grey, whose 'Nine Days Reign' after the death of King Edward VI in 1553 resulted in her imprisonment and execution. As granddaughters of Henry VIII's sister Mary, Queen of France, the Grey sisters enjoyed the status of royal princesses. Nonetheless, Katherine fared only slightly better than Jane. In 1560 she secretly married without royal permission, and with the birth of her child imminent, was locked in the Tower of London by Queen Elizabeth I. There is a miniature in a private collection, also by Levina Teerlinc, of Katherine holding her child and wearing a miniature of her husband, with whom she was never reunited. In 1563 she was transferred to the country, where she died in 1568. On the basis of costume and the sitter's age, this miniature dates from the reign of Mary I (1553-1558), whom Lady Jane Grey had unsuccessfully tried to usurp. Katherine would have been about 15 to 20 years old. Levina Teerlinc's portrait composition is based on the formula of Hans Eworth, with the sitter painted to the waist with hands clasped. Levina was the daughter of Simon Benninck, a famous member of the Ghent-Bruges school of illuminators. She was part of the royal household, a gentlewoman to both Mary I and Elizabeth I."
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| Nicholas Hilliard Portrait miniature of unknown man ca. 1590 watercolor on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| follower of Nicholas Hilliard Portrait miniature of unknown man 1617 watercolor on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
"The inscription, in the beautiful calligraphy associated with the Hilliard studio, gives the age of the sitter, the year of the painting, and an epigram: Abigitq[ue] trahitque ('it both repels and draws'). This has recently been identified as a conceit taken from William Camden's Remaines (1605), comparing love to a rose (depicted on the left) whose bloom attracts and yet whose thorns repel. The Latin words might also be translated as 'he drives away and he brings along' which in a transferred sense could refer to the sitter's charms."
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| Isaac Oliver Portrait miniature of Richard Sackville, 3rd Earl of Dorset 1616 watercolor on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
"Richard Sackville (1590-1624) succeeded as 3rd Earl of Dorset in 1609. He married Lady Anne Clifford, daughter of George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland. Her diary records the many extravagances that led to the mortgaging of his house, Knole in Kent. Sackville was a prominent figure in the tiltyard (where a horseman with a lance would charge at a mark or person). His interest in such chivalrous pastimes is reflected in the pieces of armour on the table and floor. This is one of the biggest and most important of Isaac Oliver's large-scale miniatures. For Dorset no expense was too great. Here the painter used the three most important blue pigments: costly ultramarine (lapis lazuli) for his breeches spangled with moons and suns; blue bice (azurite) for the side curtain, pelmet and stockings; and smalt (a pigment made from cobalt-colored glass) for the greyish curtain behind the sitter."
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| Peter Oliver Portrait miniature of Isaac Casaubon ca. 1620 watercolor on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| manner of Alexander Cooper Portrait miniature of unknown man dated 1629, but actually a 19th-century forgery watercolor on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Monogrammist D.M. Portrait miniature of unknown woman 1671 watercolor on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Charles Beale the younger Portrait miniature of Sir Peter Lely 1679 watercolor on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
"This is a copy in miniature after the large-scale self-portrait by Peter Lely of 1660 (in the National Portrait Gallery, London). It was an established practice in the 17th century to copy in miniature works by Old Masters. Charles Beale the younger was the son of Mary Beale, the oil painter, who was friends with Sir Peter Lely. His father, Charles Beale the elder, was retired from the Patents Office and lived the life of a connoisseur and collector. He was keen that his son should learn to paint, probably not for economic reasons but to acquire the knowledge and skill to be able to converse with other members of cultivated society. At the age of 17 the younger Charles was sent to learn to paint miniatures with Thomas Flatman, another friend of the Beale family."
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| Edmund Ashfield Portrait miniature of the Hon. Charles North ca. 1690 watercolor on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Susannah Penelope Rosse Portrait miniature of unknown woman ca. 1690 watercolor on vellum (costume unpainted) Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Benjamin Arlaud Portrait miniature of unknown man ca. 1700-1705 watercolor on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
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| Andreas von Behn Portrait miniature of Robert Benson, Baron Bingley 1704 watercolor on vellum Victoria & Albert Museum |
"The miniature is dated 1704 and depicts Robert Benson, 1st Baron Bingley. Benson became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1711 and was Queen Anne's Ambassador Extraordinary to the Spanish court in 1713. The painter, Andreas von Behn, was born in Christianopel in Sweden in 1650. Behn was a specialist known mainly for his miniatures in watercolour on vellum and in enamel on metal. He worked in Sweden from 1677 to 1710-11. We last hear of him in Vienna about 1713 when he was drawing a pension from the Dowager Queen of Sweden. Behn may have painted this portrait when Benson was traveling on the Continent."
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| Charles Bancks Portrait miniature of unknown woman 1756 ink on vellum (plumbago) Victoria & Albert Museum |
"In the second half of the 17th century in England there was a fashion for small black and white portraits on vellum. This medium is more durable than paper. Although these portraits were called plumbagos, meaning black lead, they were usually drawn in graphite and sometimes in ink. Plumbagos developed in the Netherlands in the late 16th century within the print trade. They evolved from the printmakers' original drawings on paper, from which a print would have been engraved. Plumbagos were introduced into England when the monarchy was restored in 1660, by printmakers who returned home from exile abroad. As the taste for plumbagos became established, artists who were not printmakers also began to produce them. A few artists continued the art of the plumbago into the early 18th century. Charles Bancks was a Swede who probably came to England in the period 1725-50."
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| Thomas Forster Portrait miniature of unknown man 1702 graphite on vellum (plumbago) Victoria & Albert Museum |
– quoted texts are from curator's notes at the Victoria & Albert Museum