Great Art Comes in Small Packages

Tuesday, 21 February 2006 11:14

CINCINNATI, Ohio- Small is big this spring at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Beginning March 4, visitors will experience Perfect Likeness: European and American Portrait Miniatures from the Cincinnati Art Museum, a groundbreaking exhibition on view through May 28. More than 180 of these intimate and sentimental paintings will be on display, all drawn from the Museum’s premier collection of portrait miniatures, considered to be one of the top five in the United States. “The Perfect Likeness exhibition provides a window onto the creation and varied meanings of a little-known art form,” said Marjorie E. Wieseman, curator of European painting and sculpture. “Through one of the only exhibitions of portrait miniatures ever mounted in the United States, Cincinnatians will have the enviable opportunity to learn about these extraordinary, gemlike paintings right in their hometown.” Portrait miniatures were intensely personal mementos created to commemorate life’s most significant events, such as the birth or death of a child, a marriage or the departure of a loved one for war. These treasured keepsakes were created in a variety of media ranging from watercolor on ivory to enamelwork, and were often housed in exquisite lockets to be worn close to the body as jewelry. Others were hidden in folding cases and slipped into a pocket or a drawer. Miniatures could also be displayed more publicly atop small, decorative boxes; larger ones were framed to hang on the wall in a home. “Intimate and immediate, the portrait miniature was the wallet photograph of its day—a beautiful way to keep people close,” said Julie Aronson, curator of American painting and sculpture. “The artistry of these diminutive masterpieces is amazing, in their extraordinary precision and delicacy of technique.” The exhibition explores the art of the portrait miniature beginning with its origins in the European courts of the 16th century through its international resurgence in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The display is augmented by paintings, prints, costumes, hair jewelry and other materials to provide historical context for the works, along with interactive discovery stations for all ages. Artists featured in the exhibition include Richard Cosway, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Sarah Goodridge, Nicholas Hilliard, Edward Greene Malbone, James Peale and John Smart. “The Cincinnati Art Museum’s collection of portrait miniatures is important for anyone interested in this field of art,” said Sarah Coffin, curator, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution. “Along with the Metropolitan Museum, Cincinnati holds one of the largest collections in the country with many important and rare artists and subjects.” Visit The Cincinnati Art Museum

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