Roger and Carmela Arturi Phillips have published a hardcover catalogue of their portrait miniature collection, THE ARTURI PHILLIPS COLLECTION: A Catalogue of Portrait Miniatures. Some of the primarily British and Continental pieces may be seen on their blog, http://portraitminiature.blogspot.com/ , and they also have a page for their portrait miniature club on Facebook.

“Featuring the work of over 130 artists dating from 1588 to 2004. 447 pages all in colour, hardcover, printed on art paper, with a double page devoted to each miniature, including full page enlargements showing brushstrokes and signatures. In this book, which we have written for collectors, we discuss our collecting criteria, our experiences in buying miniatures both from auctions and dealers, our techniques for photographing them and our storage solutions. There is also new information on later artists.”

Their book is available for sale in the US from me, and the cost is $105, which includes shipping. Contact me for further detail, at CAPMiniatures@aol.com. It may also be purchased directly from the Phillips if you’re in the UK or Europe, at portraitminiatureclub@googlemail.com , from Thomas Heneage Art Books in London at artbooks@heneage.com , or in Australia from Armadale Antique Centre, at www.armadaleantiquecentre.com.au . ISBN 978-2-9536625-0-4.

Silhouette: The Art of the Shadow

Publication date: October 6, 2009

Elegant and enigmatic, the silhouette is the simplest of art forms—but that simplicity belies a rich and varied past. In this first major work on the art of the silhouette, art historian Emma Rutherford draws from dozens of American and European sources to create a fascinating history of the art form—and to illuminate the compelling social history hidden behind its shadows.

Emma Rutherford is an art historian who has specialized in silhouettes and portrait miniatures for fifteen years. Formerly a Director of the Silhouettes and Portrait Miniatures Department at Bonhams Auctioneers, she has also worked at the Victoria and Albert Museum and Phillips Auctioneers in London. She lectures and writes frequently on the subject.

The following excerpt is from Amazon, about Wolf Hall, the new novel from Hilary Mantel long-listed for the Booker Prize.  Recommended for  fans of early British portrait miniatures, and their era.

“In the ruthless arena of King Henry VIII’s court, only one man dares to gamble his life to win the king’s favor and ascend to the heights of political power.

England in the 1520s is a heartbeat from disaster. If the king dies without a male heir, the country could be destroyed by civil war. Henry VIII wants to annul his marriage of twenty years, and marry Anne Boleyn. The pope and most of Europe opposes him. The quest for the king’s freedom destroys his adviser, the brilliant Cardinal Wolsey, and leaves a power vacuum.

Into this impasse steps Thomas Cromwell. Cromwell is a wholly original man, a charmer and a bully, both idealist and opportunist, astute in reading people and a demon of energy: he is also a consummate politician, hardened by his personal losses, implacable in his ambition. But Henry is volatile: one day tender, one day murderous. Cromwell helps him break the opposition, but what will be the price of his triumph?

In inimitable style, Hilary Mantel presents a picture of a half-made society on the cusp of change, where individuals fight or embrace their fate with passion and courage. With a vast array of characters, overflowing with incident, the novel re-creates an era when the personal and political are separated by a hairbreadth, where success brings unlimited power but a single failure means death.”

About the Author

Hilary Mantel is the author of nine previous novels, including A Change of Climate, A Place of Greater Safety, and Eight Months on Ghazzah Street. She has also written a memoir, Giving Up the Ghost. Winner of the Hawthornden Prize, she reviews for The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and the London Review of Books. She lives in England.

The long-awaited volume on the Metropolitan Museum’s collection of American portrait miniatures will be released next January, and is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

American Portrait Miniatures in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

This volume catalogues the world’s most comprehensive collection of American portrait miniatures, ranging in date from the early 18th to the 20th century and representing 155 artists. Jewel-like and intimate, the pieces portray spouses, children, and other loved ones and were usually created for personal use. The Museum’s collection is also significant for its self-portraits by artists and for portraits of notable public figures. Each of the nearly six hundred works is illustrated and described in detail, and a biography and bibliography are provided for each artist. An introductory essay conveys the history of the collection.

About the Author
Carrie Rebora Barratt is Curator, American Paintings and Sculpture, and Manager of The Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art, and Lori Zabar is Research Associate, American Paintings and Sculpture, both at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
________________________________________

Product Details
• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art (January 12, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 030014895X
• ISBN-13: 978-0300148954

The Intimate Portrait:
Drawings, Miniatures and Pastels from Ramsay to Lawrence

Exhibition organised by the National Galleries of Scotland and the British Museum,  5 March – 31 May 2009,
Room 90.

The first ever major UK exhibition to examine a fascinating but relatively unknown aspect of British portraiture will open at the British Museum this spring. The Intimate Portrait will explore the period between the 1730s and the 1830s – the heyday of British portraiture – when some of the country’s greatest artists produced beautifully worked portraits in pencil, chalks, watercolours and pastels that were often exhibited, sold and displayed as finished works of art. Jointly organised by the National Galleries of Scotland and the British Museum, this exhibition of 180 works will draw upon the superb (and largely unexplored) holdings of intimate portrait drawings in the collections of both institutions, as well as upon important private collections that have been placed on long-term loan at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Highlights will include masterpieces by Allan Ramsay, Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, Richard Cosway, John Downman, Archibald Skirving, Charlotte Jones, Sarah Biffin, Thomas Lawrence, and David Wilkie, among others.

The exhibition is arranged thematically to look at artists’ self-portraits and images of their families and friends, as well as their portrayal of the rising middle classes and the celebrities of the day. Well-known sitters include Prince Charles Edward Stuart, Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Lady Hamilton, the Duke of Wellington and the young Queen Victoria. Intimate portraits are revealed to be important indicators of contemporary taste and ideas of ‘sentiment’, particularly through the many portraits of women and of children. The exhibition explores how and why they were made, where they were displayed and, above all, their qualities as portraits that are ‘intimate’ in the multiple senses of the word.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, priced £25; written by co-curators Dr Stephen Lloyd, Senior Curator at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, and by Dr Kim Sloan, Curator of British Drawings and Watercolours before 1880 at the British Museum.

The exhibition will be shown first at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh from 25 October 2008 – 1 February 2009.

A number of lectures and gallery talks will accompany the exhibition. For more information check online or contact the press office.

For further information on the exhibition, or images: Katrina Whenham 020 7323 8583 kwhenham@britishmuseum.org .  See also www.britishmuseum.org  to order the catalogue.

There’s a real need for a comprehensive  dictionary and guide for American portrait miniatures (along the lines of Daphne Foskett’s dictionary on English miniatures).  It’s astounding to go through Theodore Bolton’s book and see how many miniaturists are listed whose works are apparently now in the wind. (Bolton’s book has very few images, or it would be a greater help as far as identifying artists). 

There’s scholarship available on American miniaturists–but it’s scattered far and wide in a variety of books and articles. Likewise,  there are many miniatures in many U.S. museums across the country, as well as historical societies and other public collections (such as the Tennesse Portrait Project), and in a number of private collections, but these haven’t been cross-referenced and assessed en suite.   Once that’s done, the scholarship can then be advanced.

Unsigned American miniatures come on the market every day,  and languish unidentified.  A comprehensive dictionary of American miniatures and miniaturists–with examples by each artist, a brief history of each artist, and a description of the artist’s techniques–would go far to help identify  American School miniatures, and expand the knowledge on this  American art form.  In particular the American Revivalists need some coverage, as there’s a dearth of material.  If the information were consolidated  significant progress could be made in the study of American portrait miniatures, and it would add  important knowledge to America’s  history. Miniatures are a vital part of our fine art, social and political past. It’s hard for others to take our miniaturists seriously if we don’t  take them seriously.  As well, such a book introduces them to a wider audience–which, in turn, brings more visitors to the museums, exhibitions, and lectures on miniatures. And there’s wider potential audience than even that–most English and European parties interested in portrait miniatures known very little about American miniatures, and a dictionary would bring interest in them into an international realm.

I think with the publication of the first edition that then a good deal of material presently in private collections would come forth, and enrich and update a second edition.  Just the other day, for instance, an accidental conversation with a blogger led to the discovery of a Benbridge with an identified sitter–it has been in her  family for 200 years (and, alas for collectors, will remain so).

As well, there may be important information already collated by individuals. Edward (Grosvenor) Paine supposedly left behind a comprehensive manuscript on miniatures that he used as a sales tool. Likewise there’s supposed to be material in the Chieffo estate.  The Lewis Rabbage estate papers on Revival artists are apparently now with the Worcester Museum.  

In the meantime, I, as have some others, have been keeping  research files on miniaturists, recording every  identified artist I come across as well as any information on them.   For anyone out there who has images of signed, inscribed or firmly identified American miniatures, especially by the more scarce artists, as well as any accompanying information (provenance, exhibitions, etc) then please send them along and I’ll add them to the files.

Two new titles on miniatures have been recently published.  Dictionnaire Des Peintres En Miniature: Actifs En France (1650-1850) by Nathalie Lemoine-Bouchard, is in French. It features only signed miniatures, is  560 pages, with 1200 illustrations, and includes a foreword from Pierre Rosenberg, of the French Academy, and Honorary President of the Louvre. ISBN 978-2-85017-468-2.

The other title is Die Welt der Bildnisminiatur: Meisterwerke aus der Sammlung Emil S. Kern, by Bodo Hofstetter. It is in German, is 200 pages, and features 72 English and European portrait miniatures from the Dr. E.S. Kern collection, which was donated in 1998 to the Winterthur Museum, in Switzerland.   brinerundkern@win.ch  ISBN 978-3-7165-1485-6.