Portrait of a woman known as Sarah Churchill

In the second half of the 17th century in England there was a fashion for small black and white portraits drawn on vellum – fine animal skin – which is more durable than paper. These were called ‘plumbagos’, meaning black lead, but were usually drawn in graphite, as in this portrait, and sometimes in ink. Plumbagos developed in the Netherlands in the late 16th century within the printing trade. They were a development of evolved from the a printmaker’s original drawings on paper, from which a print would have been engraved. Plumbagos were introduced to England at the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 by printmakers who returned from exile abroad. As the taste for plumbagos became established, artists who were not print-makers also began to produce them. A few artists continued the art of the plumbago into the early 18th century. Almost nothing is known of Thomas Forster, but he was clearly a talented plumbago artist, whose portraits date from between 1690 and 1713.