Masterpieces in Little

This catalogue accompanies the exhibition of portrait miniatures from the Royal Collection to be shown in 1996-97 at the Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Huntington Library, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The artists range from Lucas Hornebolte, Henry VIII's limner, painting in the 1520s, to Sir William Charles Ross and his Victorian contemporaries. The collection has particular strengths in the Tudor and Stuart period and there are fine examples of the work of Hans Holbein the Younger, Nicholas Hilliard, Isaac and Peter Oliver, John Hoskins, Samuel Cooper, Jean Petitot and Charles Boit; eighteenth-century miniaturists include C.F. Zincke, Jeremiah Meyer and Richard Cosway. Theseventy-five miniatures are illustrated in colour, each with an extended catalogue entry. Three introductory essays discuss the formation of the Royal Collection; the development of the miniature, its style and technique; and the social history of the miniature. There is a full bibliography. CHRISTOPHER LLOYD is Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures; VANESSA REMINGTON works for the Royal Collection Trust.