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ANTIQUE MINIATURE OIL ON IVORY PORTRAIT/BRITISH OFFICER browse these categories for related items... All Items: Fine Art:Paintings:Oil:Europe:British: Pre 1900: item # 787077 Please refer to our stock # BritishOffic when inquiring.
Shelton Gallery and Fine Silver 5133 Harding Road B-10, PMB #392 Nashville TN 37205 (615) 477-6221 Guest Book $2500 |
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| This extremely well executed large miniature oil on ivory half-length portrait depicts a British officer in the Royal Artillery. He is in full dress uniform with his white-gloved hand resting on the bill of his forage cap. He sports large bushy sideburns and his sword rests at his side. The painting is quite large, measuring 4 x 3 inches, and sits in a new frame that measures 6-1/2 x 5-1/2 inches. The portrait is behind UV museum quality glass. Antique miniatures have been around for 450 years in Europe and about 250 years in America. Before the age of photography, beautifully painted Portrait Miniatures were commissioned by friends and families as remembrances of loved ones. They were carried as a reminder during travel, were given on occasions such as births, engagements, weddings, and going off to war, and in memorial for those who had died. Portrait miniatures were carried around in the hand for private viewings, or in the nineteenth century were displayed on the wall or on a bureau for more public viewings. The connection between the subject and the viewer was usually intimate, so miniatures were the most personal form of portraiture. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, artists meticulously cross-hatched and stippled strokes of watercolor onto vellum backed by a playing card. In the eighteenth century, ivory became the medium upon which miniatures were painted. The ivory was painstakingly scraped, blotted, dried and scored to help the watercolor pigment, mixed with water or gum arabic---to adhere to the surface. Ivory has a wonderful translucent quality that enlivens the features of the sitter as no other medium can. Portrait miniatures were not signed as a rule, and the artists who painted them also painted landscapes and larger sized portraits. But certain miniaturist painters are known and sought after, and sitters whose identity is known are especially desirable. Though we do not know his name, this officer's regiment has been identified. By the mid-nineteenth century with the advent of photography, the miniature’s popularity had waned. | ||||||||||||
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