Smithsonian American Art Museum
Doris M. Magowan Gallery of Portrait Miniatures
August 8, 1986 – February 28, 1987
On view are 100 examples from the NMAA collection, tracing the medium from the latter half of the 18th century through the mid-19th century. Miniatures, first popular during the Renaissance, were created as a symbol of a personal bond between the subject of the painting and its owner. In America, the miniature of the colonial period, generally a small opaque oval, grew in size, and, as time went on, became a rectangular accessory for wall or tabletop.
