If your Georgian ancestry includes men and women of means, then it is likely that portraits were painted of them in miniature form. These portable, intimate keepsakes were a precursor to photographs of loved ones tucked into pockets or displayed with pride in the family home. They offer a fascinating study of Georgian society.

Hand-held portraits of individuals date back to the 15th century, inspired by those that appeared in illuminated manuscripts. In the 18th century the term ‘miniature’ was coined, derived from the Italian miniature, when portrait miniatures grew in popularity across Europe.

Eighteenth-century miniatures were truly diminutive in size, ranging in height from around 2.7cm to 7.8cm, making them versatile art objects. Georgians wore them as bracelets, rings and lockets; mounted them in watch cases and had them set in objects de virtu, such as snuff boxes. Sometimes miniatures contained a special inscription or lock of hair on the reverse, fostering the close connection between sitter and beholder. In wealthy households, miniatures might be displayed together in special cabinets, acting as a visual family tree.

At court, portrait miniatures served as diplomatic gifts, lending intimacy to royal patronage, marriages and foreign relations. Gifts of miniatures were usually reciprocated, in appreciation of the personal favour conferred. In 1790, King George III presented a miniature portrait of himself set in ‘brilliants’, or diamonds, to the Spanish ambassador to thank him for 16,000 guineas raised at a London gala. By 1790, diamonds had become widely available In Britain as a luxury commodity. The Spanish ambassador responded with a gift of a miniature of himself, also set in jewels.

Miniatures set into expensive jewellery speak of the opulence of Georgian society. While it may be that expensive settings were commissioned to communicate the value placed on the sitter, the effect was to blur the line between a portrait’s personal and economic worth.

Samuel Shelley’s beguiling miniature of socialite Angelica Church is set in pearls, and emphasises her wealth and status. Shelley shows off her stylish curls, head dress and lace trim. She is also shown with porcelain white skin and with rouge applied to her cheeks, in keeping with the latest cosmetic fashions. Shelley’s fluid brushstrokes share similarities with the work of celebrated miniaturist Richard Cosway (this year marks the bicentenary of Cosway’s death). Shelley and Cosway’s technique was in tune with Romantic thinking of the period and its emphasis on the senses, individual feeling and expression.

Other key miniaturists of the Georgian period include Penelope Carwardine, Richard Crosse, George Engleheart, Ozias Humphrey and John Smart. Carwardine was a remarkable woman who trained as a portrait miniaturist to support herself after her family got into financial difficulty. Her work was exhibited at the Society of Artists in the 1760s and 1770s, but she was one of an earlier generation of miniaturists who were self-taught. Conversely, Cosway, Smart, Crosse and Humphrey all trained at William Shipley’s drawing school in London.

Smart’s precise technique and ‘warts and all’ approach tended to attract custom from the wealthy merchant class and officers serving abroad. In the 1780s, Smart, Humphrey and others were kept busy taking portrait commissions from officials and officers of the East India Company. They successfully cashed in on British colonial rule in India and the profits made from trade monopolies.

London, Bath and Dublin were also hotspots for business, where wealthy Georgians spent a ‘season’. Charles Shirreff, who was educated at the first school for deaf children in Edinburgh, advertised to the ‘nobility and gentry’ his arrival in Bath. Shirreff’s advert does not include a price for his work, but others do, such as W.H. Watts, who advertised miniatures on ivory at 2 to 5 guineas – the equivalent of around £250 to £600 in today’s money. Renowned miniaturist Samuel Finney earned £200 to £300 a year in 1758, enabling him to employ servants to greet clients and show them to a room displaying his works.

Delving into the correspondence of 18th-century family collections can shed more light on the gifting of portrait miniatures between family members and acquaintances. Bedfordshire Archives has some fine collections from the period, including the archives and business dealings of the Whitbread family (brewers) and extensive correspondence of the aristocratic de Grey/Yorke family of Wrest Park.

Samuel Whitbread’s correspondence with future prime minister Charles Grey discusses a quandary regarding an obligation Grey felt he owed two gentlemen. The nature of the debt is unclear, but Grey suggests that if money is refused on the grounds of friendship for beloved, recently deceased ‘Tom’, then the ‘most grateful present’ might be ‘Engleheart’s pictures set in gold snuff boxes’. The letter demonstrates how luxury portrait miniatures could be gifted to offset personal debts among friends and associates.

The Yorke correspondence also reveals how the possession of miniatures transcended blood ties. When Elizabeth Anson died at the tender age of 34 in 1760, her sister-in-law, Jemima Yorke (Lady Grey), was distraught. She wrote to Elizabeth’s brother to request special permission to have her miniatures. In particular she desired those of Lady Anson, Lady Anson’s sister, and another of Mary Yorke née Maddocks, who, like Jemima, married into the Yorke line. It is unclear whether the request was granted, but it was met sympathetically when Elizabeth’s immediate family were coming to terms with her loss. Jemima’s request reveals her close friendship with Elizabeth and the solidarity between women who had married into the same family.

Portrait miniatures were exchanged between lovers and married couples, and unions were inscribed even further when a woman was painted wearing a miniature of her husband. It tended to be women who wore miniatures on their person, but men certainly cherished them in private, as the Will of Henry Vassall (Lord Holland) at Bedfordshire Archives testifies. Vassell left to his daughter, Mary, no less than three miniatures of his wife hanging in his room, as a ‘token of my affectionate remembrance’. Yet he also left to his wife, Elizabeth, all his estates and plantations in Jamaica and ‘property’ elsewhere in the West Indies. The family’s investment in human slavery shows how miniatures inhabited a contradictory world. The lives of close friends and family were treasured at home, but the dignity of Black Africans uprooted from their families and homes was overlooked or disregarded.

Portrait miniatures continued to be popular well into the 19th century. In an 1801 review of a Royal Academy exhibition the miniatures were deemed ‘excellent’, whereas their life-size counterparts were criticised for showing their sitters in ‘foolish’ poses or situations. The miniatures satisfied a desire for character without pretension. Indeed, these tiny treasures were practical and tangible tributes, enabling skilful artists to focus on animating the faces of those who prospered under Georgian rule.

An eye for an eye
A fascinating spin-off from portrait miniatures is the vogue for painted eye miniatures, depicting a loved one’s eye, eyebrow, and occasionally the bridge of a nose and a few locks of hair. The emphasis on a single eye makes these intriguing – and somewhat eerie – portraits difficult to identify and attribute. Unless mounted inside a frame, locket or ring inscribed with the sitter’s name, many watchful eyes in public and private collections remain a mystery.

Eye miniatures were commissioned for intensely private exchanges between sitter and beholder. They ‘kept an eye on’ a close relative, entranced a lover, and in rare instances invoked grief and mourning with tiny crystal teardrops. Occasionally, the eye of the sitter is shown looking to the left or right, but more often than not, an eye is shown looking directly at the beholder.

The fashion for eye miniatures among the Georgian elite was relatively short lived. They first appeared in the 1780s and were popular until the middle of the 19th century. The story of the Prince of Wales’ (later George IV) illicit pursuit of widower Maria Fitzherbert in 1785 reveals how eye miniatures could breach the private realm and Georgian notions of propriety. The young prince proposed marriage several times to Maria, while he was under the age of royal consent. When Maria went abroad to cool his advances, he proposed from afar and sent a miniature of his right eye by Cosway as proof of his undying love. Following a secret marriage, Cosway painted the eye of Maria for the prince. Their exchange of eye miniatures attracted scandal when the prince was alleged to have passed round his eye of Maria at the opera.