A 17th century port, with shipping

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. In Continental Europe, however, the miniature technique was used not only for portraits but also for small delicate genre scenes, reflecting the roots of miniature painting in the art of the illuminated manuscript.

Miniature painting was also a less specialist art on the Continent and was practised by artists who worked as oil painters, such as Lucas Van Valkenborgh (ca.1535-1597), or as engravers, such as Johan Wilhelm Baur (1600 or 1610-1642). This miniature is by Baur, who was born in Strasburg, baptised on 31 May 1607, and buried in Vienna, January 1642. A German etcher and painter, active in Italy and Austria, his outstanding miniatures and etchings were long influential in Germany and Austria. His father and grandfather were respected goldsmiths, but it was in the Strasburg workshop of Friedrich Brentel I that he learned drawing, etching and painting on vellum.