Chats on Old Miniatures

d pieces, is formed out of a portion of the plate itself. The artist, having polished a piece of metal about a quarter of an inch thick, generally copper, traced upon it the outlines of

ess as in the cloisonné enamels. After the piece had become cold it was polished, and the exposed lines of copper having been gilded,

y opus Lemoviticum was in high favour. A century later, when the city was sacked by the troops of Edward the Black Prince, the manufacture received a great check. But with the Renaissance came a renewed demand for enamels, which were used in combination with articles of domestic utility, and in the reign of Francis the First the enamellers of Limoges, among whom Suzanne de Court, Laudin, Jehan

of the Renaissance, partly devotional and still more strongly classical and sensuous in feeling and treatment. Old Limoges enamel, as we all know, is

he varied uses to which they were applied. The British Museum of late years has been enriched by what is known as the Waddesdon Collection, bequeathed by the

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te to say that the portrait is the primary object in the production of th

ey were left a uniform cold white. Until one has got a little used to this absence of colour, and the metallic hardness which the use of oxide of tin in the paste of the enamel gave rise to, and until

etta. The head, fully seven inches long, is painted upon a deep blue ground; his hair is black, the eyes are blue, and the effect of the whole is, it must be admitted, extremely hard, in spite of the distinguished name its author,

n made. See, for example, the large panel, 9 inches by 12, or thereabouts, of Catherine de Lorraine, Duchess de Montpensier. This lady wears her hair in a go

taken by Jean Petitot, a Genevan, born in 1609. Apart from the wonderful skill of the artist, who, in respect of technique, must be considered absolutely unique, the

nd could be laid upon a thin ground of white enamel, and passed through a furnace with scarcely any change of tint, that Petitot owed the richness of his palette. From Toutin, and from Pierre Bordier, another French goldsmith, to whom he was app

itot pursued scientific research into the nature and properties of the metallic oxides with such ardour and success that the miniature painter's palette became grea

lties of the method-by which I mean the risks attending the firing-it is almost incredible that such succ

Museum, one representing the Grand Monarque when young, the other in more advanced years; or, from the same Collection, take the portraits of Mme. de Montespan and Mlle. de la Vallière; and compare these again with the insipidity and monotony of Lely and Kneller, the two artists most in vogue in this country at that time; here you have upon a small piece of gold, perhaps h

o M. Reiset this Jacques Bordier also worked in England with Petitot. Like Petitot, he returned to the Continent, and did a great deal of work in Paris upon watch-cases; the two men married two sisters, Madeleine and Margaret Cuper, in 1651. Pierre Bordier stopped in this country and executed an elaborate watch-cover, designed as a memorial of the Battle of Naseby, presented to General Fairfax, and described

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f such a character with a portrait on, or inside, the lid, with or without a setting of brilliants, as the rank and importance, or otherwise, of the fortunate recipient required, were part of the ceremonial usage and Court etiquette of the day. The Collection left to South Kensington by Mr. Gardiner, the extremely choice examples in the Wallace Collection, and the still larger collection left by the Lenoirs to the Louvre, sho

t Coutts; and the Earl of Dartrey also owns a number. The portrait, shown in this book, of Petitot le Vieux, is from this nobleman's collection, which, by the way, is also rich in examples by the brothers Hurter. These two enamellers came from Schaffhausen, being introduced to the British aristocracy by the Lo

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d drawing-master, and Walpole tells us of an intrigue which led to his being thrown into prison for two years, time which he is said to have turned to advantage by practising enamel painting, though how that could have been done under such circumstances I do not know. Ultimately he became celebrated for his work, and obtained high prices for it He attempted pieces on a

at Oxford; but specimens of his art are not very common, and are not nearly so often met with as those by

nteresting monarch hated "boetry and bainting." Zincke's work is, indeed, typically early Georgian, and repeats the insipidities of Kneller on a small scale, with a persistent consistency which is monotonous in t

he practised his art he must have executed an enormous number of portraits, for he was the fashionable artist of hi

an example by him to be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum, a body-colour drawing. T

born at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1779. He was enamel painter to George III. and George IV.; and devoted himself especially to copyin

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my, of which he was a full member, over his picture called "The Conjurer." This indifferent painting excited an amount of attention of which it was quite undeserving from the tongue of scandal, w

demy. He, too, had a share of Royal patronage, and painted many of the notabilities of his day, including the lovely Misses Gunning. He had a son, Hora

and was born at Winchester, where he studied law. Forsaking that purs

at St. Galle, in 1704. Upon his arrival in this country he found employment with the Royal Family, and, being a fine medallist, was commissioned to design the King's Great Seal. No doubt

eported to have gone about the country in the company of Richard Cosway, who at the beginning of the century was separ

erhaps more rare in miniature work, truth to life, distinguish his miniatures. He came to London when he was fourteen, and was a pupil of Zincke for two years. Fifteen years later, when only twenty-nine, he was made enameller to George

other. Such acquaintance can only be acquired by pains-taking practice, and it is obvious how greatly the difficulties of portraiture are enhanced under such conditions. It is usual to place these opaque colours upon the enamel ground, on a gold or copper plate, applying the hardest vitrifiable colour

such as candlesticks, patch-boxes and snuff-boxes, and such like, were produced. These are fairly well drawn and coloured, and consist largely of flowers, birds and fruit, and so forth, generally on a white ground. But beside all these there are a number of contemporary portraits, produced by means of trans

c efforts took, he having been apprenticed in a china manufactory at Plymouth. He removed with it to Bristol in 1778, and, coming to London, was employed in painting devices in enamel on trinkets. He first attracted attention in London by an enamel of the "Sleeping Girl," after Sir

ters, such as Raphael, Titian, and Murillo. He also executed a series of 85 copies of portraits of the statesmen and others who lived in "the spacious days of great Elizabeth." But whilst a large measure of success may be ungrudgingly accorded him in respect of these works, the flesh tones in his painting often leave something to be desired; there is a suggesti

twenty years longer. Besides these two, there was a P. J. Bone, who exhibited an enamel at the Royal Academy in 1801; and there were also two other Bones, whose names appe

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yal Academy, mostly portraits, H.M. the late Queen Victoria giving him much employment, and appointing him her enamel painter in 1839. Although most of his works exhibited at the Academy from 1818 until w

he early age of twenty-nine, having contributed to the

ly the valuable quality of permanence which such works possess (for an enamel by Petitot is as brilliant to-day as it was when it was fired), one must wish that artists would devote themselves to so satisfactory a record of contemporary portraiture. Miniature painting upon ivory, charming as it is in i

are told, ruining the art of such conservative craftsmen as those of China, of Japan, and of India; and if these Western tendencies have made their influence felt in the Far East, it is not to be wondered at that in England of to-d