Chats on Old Miniatures

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Foster Joshua James. Chats on Old Miniatures

PREFACE

CHAPTER I. ON THE COLLECTING OF MINIATURES

CHAPTER II. THE ORIGIN OF THE ART

CHAPTER III. CONCERNING ENAMELS AND ENAMEL PAINTERS

CHAPTER IV. EARLY PORTRAIT PAINTERS

CHAPTER V. NICHOLAS HILLIARD

CHAPTER VI. ISAAC AND PETER OLIVER, AND JOHN HOSKINS

CHAPTER VII. SAMUEL COOPER

CHAPTER VIII. PETITOT

CHAPTER IX. SOME GEORGIAN ARTISTS

CHAPTER X. RICHARD COSWAY

CHAPTER XI. SOME EARLY VICTORIAN ARTISTS

CHAPTER XII. ROYAL AND PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

CHAPTER XIII. PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

CHAPTER XIV. THE FRENCH SCHOOL

CONCLUSION

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You would like to make a collection of old miniatures, did I hear my reader say? and you want to know the best way to set about it? Well, I can suggest one way: it is to become a millionaire, and let it be known that you are interested in miniatures, then you will find that a collection can easily be made, and not only so, but people will actually make it for you, with an alacrity, ingenuity, and industry which may surprise you. Should you further inquire what the collection would be like when made, my reply would be: that depends upon your own taste, intelligence, knowledge of art in general, and of miniature painting in particular; upon the depth of your purse – and, I had almost said, on your luck. Let me take that last-named qualification first, and illustrate what I mean by luck in relation to a collection of miniatures. Some years ago the father of the present Duke of Buccleuch took to collecting miniatures, and the agent he employed to purchase them was the late Mr. Dominic Colnaghi, into whose shop there walked one day a man who said he had some little pictures to sell that he had bought with a "job lot" of old silver and gold from a working jeweller. These "little pictures" turned out to be no less a prize than a number of miniatures formerly in the collection of Charles I., which, as we know, was dispersed at the time of the Commonwealth. In the days of the King's prosperity these had been catalogued and described by the Royal Librarian, the conscientious Dutchman Van der Doort, and these miniatures bore on their back a crown and the royal cipher, the entwined C's. Now, after all their vicissitudes, these priceless historical miniatures rest in Montagu House, Whitehall, barely a stone's throw from the window in the banqueting-hall of the palace whence their Royal one-time owner stepped forth upon the scaffold on that bitter winter morning of January 30, 1649. By the word "luck" in connection with this acquisition, I mean that they might have been taken to any one else but Dominic Colnaghi, in which case there is but little likelihood of their having formed part of the famous Buccleuch Collection.

In truth, it may be said that there is no royal road for the collection of miniatures, and especially in these days, when so many sharp eyes are on the look-out for them. If you go to the auction-room you are confronted with that iniquitous institution known as the "knock-out," which not only debars the owner from getting the full value of his property, but often prevents the would-be private purchaser from acquiring it at all.

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There are said to be two Hoskins, both John, also father and son.

Two out of the three Hones were miniaturists, viz., Nathaniel, R.A., and his grandson, Horace Hone, A.R.A.

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