Miniatures on Parchment and ivory

In addition to ivory, fine parchment (so-called vellum) was the most popular picture surface in miniature painting, having been known for centuries from book illustration. From the 16^th to the 18^th century it was stuck onto card (often a cut-out playing card) to which the painter had previously applied a white base coat to one or two sides to increase the stability. The smoothly polished parchment surface could comfortably be painted with watercolour. For larger-formatted miniatures the parchment sheet could be stretched over a copper plate and the fold-over part could be stuck to the reverse side of the plate, so that it didn’t crimp up due to climate fluctuations (cat.-no. 2000-81). Fine parchment was used up until the end of miniature painting in the middle of the 19th century; large-scale productions in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries were painted on thin ivory sheets, however.

Ivory was discovered as an ideal picture surface for portrait miniatures at around 1700 (early examples on ivory are cat.-nos. 2000-11, 2000-12 and 2000-83). Initially used in Venice , it quickly enjoyed large popularity also in England , Germany and Holland (example: cat.-no. 2000- 87). The French miniaturists, however, painted almost exclusively on traditional parchment sheets until 1770 (examples: cat.-nos. 2000-77 and 2000-78).

Fine ivory sheets came, even in their unpainted state, bewilderingly close to the optical effect of human skin due to their colour and waxy transparency. The miniaturists played with the effects of this material in that they never painted incarnates (areas of skin) covering everything completely, but always painted them transparently. The sheets, which were sawn out of the cross sections or tangential sections were positioned so that the visible grains were vertical, this was less conspicuous in the incarnate parts than horizontal.  Until approximately 1760 the ivory sheets were about one millimetre thick. In the time with the highest production, which was from 1780 onwards, the sheets were thinner and had to be stuck on the reverse with paper to increase the stability. In order not to lessen the luminance of the ivory in the transparently painted incarnates, the adhesive was to be applied selectively, thus only to the edges of the white reverse of the pictures. The type of reverse side paper gluing of the thinner and thus transparent sheet influenced the effect of the picture fundamentally; sometimes the shade of the sheet was additionally refined by means of lightly pink toned paper. Considerably more often, one finds thin silver film (so-called paillons), which served the purpose of increasing the ivory’s luminance.

Jean Baptiste Jacques Augustin: Pauline Augustin, 1808 (18.5 cm x 14.5 cm, signed and dated top left). Watercolour and gouache on ivory and cardboard (Tansey Collection, indention number 010.036.)

Schematic portrayal of the picture surface. The ivory sheet is white, the carton extension is given as light grey. For larger formats Augustin frequently stuck an ivory sheet onto a thick card or wooden board and extended the picture surface around the edges with thin card strips. The intersection was leveled out with zinc white

Since silver film was expensive and increased illumination only made sense in incarnate parts and by transparently painted lingerie, the desired detail only was often laid underneath. The technique of the silver paillons was a continental preference and was not used in English miniatures.⁸ One of the earliest examples for the use of a paillon is the miniature which emerged around 1760, namely “Lady as Vestalin” (original: “Dame als Vestalin”) (cat.-no. 2000-114).⁹ Approximately from 1810 onwards the paillon was frequently replaced by silver leaf which was stuck to the ivory reverse side. The miniaturist was aware of the blackening of silver, yet the paillons were seldom painted with a protection coat or replaced by the more stabile tin. Presumably the artists assumed that the metal between the ivory sheet and the reverse pasting would be sealed in sufficiently thickly, so that the steam which caused the corrosion could not reach it. The blackening in the silver which arose due to corrosion, can be seen as stains in the painting, and is often the reason for the damage found in miniatures today. 

Since the width of the picture was limited to a maximum of approximately 16 cm due to the width of the elephant tusk, the miniaturist had to resort to more complex techniques for wider formats. There was the possibility to stick the ivory sheets onto a large card or wooden plate in the area of the face and hands, because the qualities of the ivory were mainly necessary there. The border areas could only be evened out with a white base coat.