Painting Procedure

Before the parchment or ivory sheet was painted, the artist created a sketch of the model in order to capture his traits exactly and, if necessary, to correct them.

This sketch was transferred to the parchment sheet with a fine drawing pencil. It could also be laid under the semi-transparent ivory sheet as a copy template and transferred with a pen or directly with paint and a brush. The first layer of paint was applied with amazingly wide and free brush strokes.

Louis Marie Sicardi: Laughing comedian, approx 1805 (6.8 cm x 5.5 cm, not signed). The uncompleted miniature shows the wide set of the robe in watery, brown brushstrokes. Background and hat are covered and had in a further work step unified and shaded. The face is completely painted except for the last dab. (private ownership)

It served as a priming coat for the later composition. Principally, there were two different methods of painting for clothes and background regarding translucence and structure: the paint could be applied using a varnishing effect or using a covering effect. The brush stokes could be dotted or broad. Every artist had his own preference. In painting guides the covering, broad strokes are described as the quicker but more difficult variety, whereas the transparent, dotted variety as the easier yet more time consuming variety of the two. The great virtuosi of the gouache painting originated from the continent: Carriera, Mosnier und Perin.

Due to the fact that a progression of light to dark was difficult to achieve using covering paint, most of the miniaturists applied the shades onto a monochrome background in varnishing colour. Transparent, covering undercoats and composition in fine strokes or dots were popular all over and in all eras, yet they were especially artistically developed in the late 18th century in England where Meyer, Crosse, Cosway and many others excelled in this technique.

Progression achieved using clear dots was a characteristic of many German and Austrian miniatures in the second half of the 18^th century; only two of the many artists working in this style König (cat.-no. 2000-38) and Füger (Cat.-no. 2000-25 and 2000-26) will be mentioned here.

Miniaturists used sophisticated special techniques to depict shiny metal accessories and gems: Gold could be depicted using powder metal (cat.-nos. 2000-8 and 2000-82), gems with brightly coloured gloss paints on silver-plated or gilded undercoats. Later on, these methods were pushed into the background by coloured depiction in the background (a late example of the use of powder gold is cat.-no. 2000-24).

Richard Cosway: Portrait of a lady, 1792 (detail). Watercolour and gouache on ivory, signed on the reverse and dated. Cosway models the portrait in the English rapid painting technique in few transparent paints and parallel, long strokes. Like Dumont, Cosway preferred the scraper to a pointed stick for contours and corrections (Tansey collection, indention no. 010.125).

German: „Mrs secret legation councillor Rudolphi, neé. Schmalz", approx 1760 (cat.-no. 2000-111, detail). Watercolour and gouache on ivory. German and Dutch miniaturists preferred a clear dotted structure to a covering style (background, clothes) or varnishing base coats (incarnate parts).

Jean Baptiste Jacques Augustin: „Monsieur Mahieu", approx 1798 (cat.-no. 2000-3, detail). Watercolour and gouache on ivory. Augustin exceeds his contemporary colleagues in the composition of his transparently painted incarnate parts in his fine and richness of nuances and colours. He always corrected and finely tuned the parts which were painted with the paintbrush with the scraper.

The incarnate parts were the most difficult and time consuming part of painting. Their painting style on parchment differed fundamentally to that on ivory: Whilst a thin, skin-tone coat determined the skin tone on parchment¹⁶, on ivory the semi-transparent material itself served as the basic shade. Correspondingly, colours mixed with white were used on parchment in extended work, on ivory however, the paint glaze only - without white - was used. Also in the incarnate parts, the miniaturist began the pre-texturing initially with covering glazing. The next work steps were carried out with fine dots and strokes, work which was characteristic for miniature painting, because watercolours, could not be applied on top of each other in different layers on fine smoothed parchment, and above all on ivory, without dissolving the undercoat.

The paint did not infiltrate the undercoat but stuck to its surface. The miniaturist used the tip of the scraper in order to make the painting precise in the incarnate parts. In fact, in many miniatures, the contours and the fine progression of light to dark shades are just as much the work of the scraper as well as of the brush; the painted parts were constantly corrected and improved with the blade.

Bernd Pappe