From Modesty to Magnificence: The Golden Age of Miniature Painting in England, 1700–1800

The eighteenth-century marked a transformative period for portrait miniatures in England, as artists shifted from painting on vellum to ivory—a medium that enabled greater luminosity and refinement but required new technical skill. Early in the century, Continental artists working for the Hanoverian court maintained older traditions, but by the 1740s native English painters had mastered ivory and began to define the field.