The word ‘miniature’ describes a technique of painting in watercolour rather than the size of a painting. Miniature painting developed as a separate art in the 16th century and in Britain it became predominantly a portrait art.

Samuel Cooper had first set up established his independent miniature practice in London in 1642, the year that civil war broke out and King Charles I abandoned London for the safety of York. Cooper was not untouched personally by the years of war leading to the execution of Charles I in 1649. The poet Alexander Pope, the nephew of Cooper’s wife Christina, wrote that she ‘had three Brothers, one of whom was kill’d, another died in the service of King Charles’. Professionally, however, Cooper flourished, and during the Commonwealth period he was employed by Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector. At the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 Cooper’s reputation as the foremost artist in England secured him the patronage of the returned royal family, to which he responded with an enriched style. His flesh painting became more full bodied, noticeably so to contemporaries such as Samuel Pepys, who thought ‘the colouring of the flesh to be a little forced’.

Today, albeit with fading, this portrait of the Duke of York does not seem unnaturally sanguine. Overall the effect is less austere than Cooper’s style during the Commonwealth period, the lighting less dramatic and so the relief of the sitter’s features is less marked. Its softer, lighter style, however, does not lessen the dignity and presence of the sitter. The Duke particularly retains a serious reserve appropriate for the second son of the ‘martyred’ Charles I.