Victorian Miniatures: In the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen

The reign of Queen Victoria spanned a period of dramatic technical advance in the art of portrait miniature painting. Victoria’s patronage of the leading miniaturists of the time, and the high regard in which she held these diminutive paintings, made her a powerful advocate of the art form. Yet by the close of the Victorian age, the photograph had usurped its role, and the number of practitioners of miniature painting had dwindled almost to nothing. The Royal Collection contains one of the largest and most comprehensive groups of miniatures in existence. This catalogue traces the last great flourish of this art form during Victoria’s first two decades on the throne. The catalogue throws light on the royal couple’s preoccupation with genealogy and the way in which, after the death of the Prince Consort, the wearing of miniatures took on a central role in the etiquette of bereavement and mourning.