What were portrait miniatures used for?

They were personal keepsakes. A small likeness on vellum, card or thin ivory could be kept in a case, worn as jewellery or handed to someone as a token. The evidence still shows that use. Memorial and mourning brooches, a reversible pendant, a swivel mount and a tooled leather carrying case all appear among the listings.

Are most miniatures painted on ivory?

No. Ivory is named in 33 titles, well behind watercolour at 115 and oil at 74. Card, paper, vellum, panel, board and tin all recur. The unusual supports are stranger still: an agate panel, mother-of-pearl, celluloid, ivorine, tinplate, plaster, oak, silk, and one Indian group painted on the reverse of the glass.

How are these dated by dealers?

Usually by bracket rather than by year. Nineteenth-century labels dominate the archive, with the eighteenth century behind them, and Georgian and Regency covering much the same ground from another angle. Only 13 titles say dated, so an inscribed year on the piece itself is uncommon. Phrases like first half 19th century or 18th/19thC do most of the work.

Do silhouettes count as miniatures?

They sit in the category and account for 41 titles, rising to about one in ten of live stock on Sellingantiques. The sample covers cut, painted and gilded profiles, work on plaster, on glass and reverse-painted glass, plus plumbago and pastel cut-outs. Signed or attributed silhouettists turn up more often than named hands on the painted portraits, and one profile is of a spaniel.

Why do Indian and Persian miniatures sit at the top?

They are scarce in this category. Indian appears in only 17 of 676 titles, yet those entries occupy the ceiling of the market. Mughal School gouache, Deccan album pages around 1700, a Qajar painting and a Persian work placed at the end of the sixteenth century account for several of the highest-priced pieces in the archive.

Which pieces come as pairs or sets?

More come that way than the word miniature suggests. Pair appears in 57 titles, and framed groups of three, four, five, six, seven and eight recur through the sample. The largest is a German entry catalogued as thirty miniatures of the Vita Christi, in ink and pigment with gilt on paper. Sets and pairs form a noticeable slice of current stock.

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Antique Miniatures

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Very small painted pictures, mostly head-and-shoulders portraits on ivory, card, copper or vellum, made to be held, worn or set on a table rather than hung on a wall.