Best in Show
Vincent Bertrand, Two Young Girls Emerging from the Clouds, c.1810 - The Harley Gallery, Nottinghamshire
“This is a very poignant image. We don’t know the identities of the children in this miniature by 19th-century French artist Vincent Bertrand, but the depiction of them coming out of a cloudy background like little angels tells us that they died young. You can just see their heads and shoulders and not anything of what they might be carrying or holding. It’s an intimate piece of art and you feel like you’re intruding.
Miniatures were, of course, always intended to be held in the hand of a loved one or worn close to the heart in a locket or brooch. They showed the sitter as they really were and did not seek to reflect wealth or status like large public portraits hung on walls. Studying a miniature is like looking through a window straight at that person at that time.
This image was painted on ivory, which isn’t an easy surface on which to work. It is slippery and it’s difficult to make the paint take or to correct mistakes. It’s the result of an extraordinary technique refined over centuries with tiny strokes painstakingly applied in a well-lit studio.
I was asked to compile these 19th-century miniatures because I had worked on ones from the same period in the Royal Collection. When I started that original project, I had assumed that I’d be chronicling the sorry tale of a 400-year-old art form that was diminishing and being replaced by photography.
But that wasn’t the case: the intimacy and uniqueness of the miniature continued to hold sway over photographs, which could, of course, be copied many times.
Working on these pieces also gave me the chance to learn more about the man who acquired them, the reclusive fifth Duke of Portland who left behind huge building projects but no memoirs of any kind.
We have a hazy impression of him as the tunnelling duke of Welbeck Abbey [he oversaw the creation of a network of underground tunnels on the estate], a wealthy man who did not connect with society in the way that was expected of him and preferred to live his life out of sight. It’s fascinating to see what he was collecting. The miniatures, reflect the aspects of life with which he didn’t engage – love, youth, beauty, celebrity and high society. It’s as if he lived all these things second-hand through the beautiful images he bought.
There are lovely pictures of Napoleon and Empress Josephine, as well as the Duchess of Fontanges – the beautiful but doomed mistress of Louis XIV – and the noted soprano Adelaide Kemble, with whom the duke was once in love.”
Interview by John Holt. The exhibition of miniatures from the Portland Collection is at the Harley Gallery, Welbeck Estate, Nottinghamshire, until 30 September.
Vanessa Remington is the senior curator of paintings at the Royal Collection and the curator of the exhibition of miniatures from the Portland Collection.
Miniatures were, of course, always intended to be held in the hand of a loved one or worn close to the heart in a locket or brooch. They showed the sitter as they really were and did not seek to reflect wealth or status like large public portraits hung on walls. Studying a miniature is like looking through a window straight at that person at that time.
This image was painted on ivory, which isn’t an easy surface on which to work. It is slippery and it’s difficult to make the paint take or to correct mistakes. It’s the result of an extraordinary technique refined over centuries with tiny strokes painstakingly applied in a well-lit studio.
I was asked to compile these 19th-century miniatures because I had worked on ones from the same period in the Royal Collection. When I started that original project, I had assumed that I’d be chronicling the sorry tale of a 400-year-old art form that was diminishing and being replaced by photography.
But that wasn’t the case: the intimacy and uniqueness of the miniature continued to hold sway over photographs, which could, of course, be copied many times.
Working on these pieces also gave me the chance to learn more about the man who acquired them, the reclusive fifth Duke of Portland who left behind huge building projects but no memoirs of any kind.
We have a hazy impression of him as the tunnelling duke of Welbeck Abbey [he oversaw the creation of a network of underground tunnels on the estate], a wealthy man who did not connect with society in the way that was expected of him and preferred to live his life out of sight. It’s fascinating to see what he was collecting. The miniatures, reflect the aspects of life with which he didn’t engage – love, youth, beauty, celebrity and high society. It’s as if he lived all these things second-hand through the beautiful images he bought.
There are lovely pictures of Napoleon and Empress Josephine, as well as the Duchess of Fontanges – the beautiful but doomed mistress of Louis XIV – and the noted soprano Adelaide Kemble, with whom the duke was once in love.”
Interview by John Holt. The exhibition of miniatures from the Portland Collection is at the Harley Gallery, Welbeck Estate, Nottinghamshire, until 30 September.
Vanessa Remington is the senior curator of paintings at the Royal Collection and the curator of the exhibition of miniatures from the Portland Collection.