Portrait of an unknown woman
Portrait Miniature
ca. 1800 (painted)
ca. 1800 (painted)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
This miniature is framed in a locket with a hair ornament set on the reverse. The fashion for hair ornaments set in the back of miniature lockets developed in the late 18th century. The giving of tokens of hair was a long-established practice. When Queen Charlotte appointed Samuel Finney as her miniature painter in 1763, she sent him a lock of her hair. This, he wrote in his memoir, should be 'preserved by his family with the same care and reverence as a good catholick would the relicks of his patron Saint'. The back of a miniature provided a perfect setting for such tokens, but the fashion for hair ornaments grew to such an extent that they were sometimes merely decorative rather than sentimental. This is a highly ornate decoration, with flourishes of hair joined with swags of seed pearls, and the initials of sitter laid in seed pearls over a hair ground. It is not clear whether it is made with hair from the sitter or is an example of this fashion, which now seems rather odd.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Portrait of an unknown woman (popular title) |
| Materials and techniques | Watercolour on ivory |
| Brief description | Miniature portrait of an unknown woman by Charles Robertson, ca.1800. |
| Physical description | Oval portrait, head and shoulders, to left, looking to front, of a young woman in a white dress. |
| Dimensions |
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| Styles | |
| Credit line | Bequeathed by John Reginald Jones |
| Object history | This miniature was on loan to the Museum from 1927. |
| Subject depicted | |
| Summary | This miniature is framed in a locket with a hair ornament set on the reverse. The fashion for hair ornaments set in the back of miniature lockets developed in the late 18th century. The giving of tokens of hair was a long-established practice. When Queen Charlotte appointed Samuel Finney as her miniature painter in 1763, she sent him a lock of her hair. This, he wrote in his memoir, should be 'preserved by his family with the same care and reverence as a good catholick would the relicks of his patron Saint'. The back of a miniature provided a perfect setting for such tokens, but the fashion for hair ornaments grew to such an extent that they were sometimes merely decorative rather than sentimental. This is a highly ornate decoration, with flourishes of hair joined with swags of seed pearls, and the initials of sitter laid in seed pearls over a hair ground. It is not clear whether it is made with hair from the sitter or is an example of this fashion, which now seems rather odd. |
| Bibliographic reference | Victoria & Albert Museum Department of Prints and Drawings and Department of Paintings, Accessions 1962. London: HMSO, 1964. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | P.98-1962 |
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| Record created | July 14, 2003 |
| Record URL |
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