The following anecdote about portrait miniatures recently appeared on the blog “Artists and Ancestors”  (http://portmin.blogspot.com/):

“I will leave you with a story that I was told just a few days ago. A man, very old today, remembers visiting in his grandfather’s jewellery store in Manhattan during the depression. The man remembers people bringing in scraps of metal to be sold for pennies.  And he remembers being just tall enough that he was eye to eye with a large jar his grandfather kept on a table. And the jar was full of little faces.  The faces of miniatures which were discarded for the small amount of the precious metal would bring.  All those tiny bits of art, lost to the world.”

The philosophy of collecting and collections is something that always interests me, and I thought that a quote from Orlando Rock, Christie’s head of Private Collections, illustrated a facet of this.

“What makes the perfect collection?  The key is not to be too old-fashioned and to have a few masterpieces which stand out, around which groups can be coherently formed. But above all, a collection needs to have charm and be full of character; it very rarely works if it is bland or unimaginative. and in an ideal world, added into this mix would be a touch of glamour:  The allure of the cult of the personality….for me, every work of art tells a story–and it is the romance of the object, where it comes from, who commissioned it and who owned it subsequently–that is at the heart of what we do. “

As per the previous post, regarding the idea of the American miniatures dictionary and guide, when I come across images of miniatures by little known artists (primarily American, since they are less documented, but also occasionally English and Continental), I’ll post them here. 

This will provide the opportunity for any viewers to compare and contrast any American School miniatures they may have, to possibly come up with an artist identification or attribution.

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Mynert, M. E. : American.  Active St. Louis, MO, 1836;    New Orleans, LA, 1838-40.

This  miniature  of a young man is signed on the back and dated N. Orleans, 1842. It is said to be the portrait of  Charles J. Leeds (1822-98), who was the 33rd mayor of New Orleans, from 1874-76.  William Gerdts identifys Mynert as having visited Nashville, TN, in 1836. Photos courtesy of Edward Sheppard.

 

 

 The  miniature of a young man below is attributed by Ed Sheppard to Mynert, based on the signed miniature by Mynert sabove. Photo courtesy of Edward Sheppard.

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Miller, William H. : 1820-c. 1860+.  American.  Active  NY.    

The miniature of the man is signed Miller, NY, and is from the ex-collection of Tom Porter. The artist is probably William H. Miller of New York, who practiced for a time with William Hillyer. The miniature of the woman below that  is signed William Miller. It’s interesting to note that both the man and the woman are seated on a red sofa–perhaps a sofa that was in Miller’s studio.  See Groce and Wallace for further information on this artist. Photo of woman courtesy of Edward Sheppard.

 

 

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Allen, Sarah Lockhart:  1793-1877.  American. Active Salem,  MA.  

Allen is listed in Theodore Bolton’s book. She was born, and died, in Salem, Massachusetts, and was working there as early as 1820. She was a miniaturist and a crayon portraitist. Further sources include: G&W; Belknap, Artists and Craftsmen of Essex County, 6; Bolton, Miniature Painters, and Crayon Draftsmen; cf. Miss — Allen.

This miniature is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and is a copy of a portrait of Bertel Thorwaldsen, holding a mallet.  Photo credit Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

 

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Scarborough, William Harrison: 1812-1871. American.  Active SC.

Born in Dover, Tennessee, Scarborough studied art and medicine in Cincinnati and worked for several years as a portraitist in Tennessee before moving to to South Carolina in 1830. After marrying into a prominent family in 1836, he settled in Darlington, SC, for a few years and then relocated permanently to Columbia, SC in 1843. There the artist gained considerable success as a painter of portraits and miniatures, painting the state’s political leaders and the faculty of South Carolina College. He also worked in North Carolina and Georgia, and made frequent visits to NYC. Scarborough traveled to Europe (1857-58) and on his return tried to establish an art gallery in Columbia, but the destruction of the city during the Civil War brought an end to this endeavor. Sources: G&W; Hennig, William Harrison Scarborough, contains an account of the artist’s life and a checklist of his work; F.F. Sherman in Antiques (Dec. 1933), pages 27-29, identified this artist as John Scarborough; but Sherman corrected this error in Antiques (Oct. 1934), page 149. More recently, see Gerdts, Art Across America, vol. 2: 61, 64, 138.   Text from Artprice.com. Photo courtesy of a private collector.

 

 

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Mercer, William: 1772-1850.  American. Active PA;  VA.  

Mercer painted portraits, historical paintings and miniatures.  He worked in Pennsylvania and also apparently in Virginia. The miniature below, is in the collection of the Virginia Historical Society, is signed with a monogram,  circa 1790 and is of Edmund Pendleton. Photo credit Virginia Historical Society.

 

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Trego, Jonathan K.:  1817-c. 1868.  American. Active PA;   St. Louis, MO, 1841. 

Trego painted portraits, animal and historical paintings, and genre paintings and the occasional portrait miniature.  From a Quaker background, Trego worked and lived in Philadelphia possibly in the late 1840s and definitely in the 1850s, as well as Bucks County.  In 1841 he was in St. Louis.

The miniature of a man directly below is signed at the lower left.  The two miniatures of a man and woman  below  sold at Northeast Auctions in February 2007.  They were painted in Bucks County, and are of Smith Trego, Jonathan’s brother, and Ann Trego, either Smith’s wife or Jonathan’s wife. It is not specified if they were signed.  Photo of signed man courtesy of Edward Sheppard.

 

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C. G. Wetmore: American. Active MD, SC, c. 1820-c. 1840.

Groce and Wallace say that Wetmore was a portrait and miniature painter in Charleston, South Carolina in 1822. He was also an agent for the Baltimore Floor Cloth Manufactury.  The miniature below is in the collection of the  Maryland Historical Society.  The sitter is Thomas Martin Maund (1794-1838).  The miniature is signed at the lower right, and a printed card behind the miniature says: -J. Wetmore/Miniature Painter.  Photo credit Maryland Historical Society.

 

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Sarah “Sally” Gardner: 1799-1862. American. Active Nantucket, MA.

Gardner is listed in Groce and Wallace as a portrait painter of Nantucket, with works in the collection of the Nantucket Historical Association, including the two miniatures below. The NHA doesn’t specify if these miniatures are signed or attributed. The second miniature is purportedly of a sitter named John Chinery.

The  Discussion on Sarah Gardner can  be found in Picturing Nantucket: An Art History of the Island With Paintings from the Collection of the Nantucket Historical Association, by Michael A. Jehle.   Photo credits Nantucket Historical Association.

 

An article found on-line, from Alan Derbyshire, Senior Conservator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, below, comments on handling portrait miniatures.  You can find further advice on handling portrait miniatures from Jerry Litamer, a specialist conservator in miniatures,  at Wiebold Studio in Terrace Park, Ohio.

“Collections of portrait miniatures often contain a variety of materials e.g. watercolour on ivory and/or vellum, oil on copper, enamels, small works on paper, metal and wooden frames etc. Therefore practical recommendations need to be quite general. However I would first point out that ‘the miniature’ should be considered as the painting and its frame/locket which should be kept together as a unit. If there are inscriptions inside, these should be photographed and noted. Many miniatures are damaged due to people
crudely opening lockets and not knowing how to reseal them. This allows dust and dirt to readily enter and also makes safe handling very risky. Watercolour on ivory miniatures in particular can be
readily damaged by touching with sweaty fingers or from breathing on them.

The miniatures can be stored in drawers lined with an inert foam e.g. Plastazote into which holes can be cut to hold the miniatures securely against vibration. This can double up for display with aesthetic refinement but there is then the problem of how to limit light exposure. Miniatures tend to be very light sensitive and therefore exposure must be limited either by curtains or timer switches.

Temperature and Relative Humidity should be around the 19 plus or minus 1 degrees C and 50% plus or minus 5% mark-the important thing is to keep conditions as stable as possible-ivory is very hygroscopic. One should consider treating miniatures which are strongly warped as a precaution against cracking. Ivory can be flattened and/or wooden frames can be built out to help accommodate them.

If treatment is not an option because of financial restraint etc then handling should be restricted where miniatures are loose and strongly warped miniatures should not be forced back into their frames.”

Alan Derbyshire
Senior Conservator
Victoria and Albert Museum
London
England

An interesting facet to the study of miniaturists and their miniatures are the self-portraits that many painted. Each self-portrait is an intimate portrayal of the man, or woman, behind the miniatures, and gives the viewer direct insight not only into the character of the artist, but also insight into the artist’s subjective interpretation of his or her own personality.  Perhaps one day a gallery or museum can mount a full-fledged exhibition of these self-portraits. In the meantime, a few illustrative images are below. 

 

John Wood Dodge, painted for his daughter Juliet, c. 1848, Yale University Art Gallery.   William Dunlap, c. 1812, Yale University Art Gallery. Note his damaged left eye.     Sarah Goodridge, c. 1825, Smithsonian Art Museum.

John Smart, c. 1797, Victoria & Albert Museum. Note his eyes–many of his sitters are painted with their eyes replaced in the portrait by his own.   Richard Cosway, c. 1770, Metropolitan Museum of Art.   Isaac Oliver, c. 1590, The Royal Collection, London. One of the earliest self-portrait miniatures extant.