c. 1780 Portrait Miniature with Amatory Hairwork

A c. 1780 portrait miniature of a young woman in white muslin with blue ribbons, the verso with a sentimental hairwork scene with wheat sheaf and amatory symbols. The rose gold case, consisting of a fixed simple bail and cover glass sealed within a rub-over collet, is of a style popular between 1760-80 (see V&A P.13-1914, P.7-1929, P.6-1940, and P.71-1910). The present miniature was likely made to celebrate a new marriage. It was common for 18th c couples—engaged, newly married, or commemorating a life together—to commission and exchange portraits. By the last quarter of the 18th c., it was increasingly the norm for portrait miniatures to be double-sided, with the verso bearing a sentimental composition made from the hair of a loved one. The present miniature contains a hairwork scene brimming with amatory motifs: there’s a pair of nesting and kissing turtledoves to represent a marriage, a large wheat sheaf for good luck and fertility, a dog to symbolize loyalty, and cupid’s bow and quiver to connote passionate love. The composition’s extraordinary degree of detail was achieved by grounding hair and mixing it with gum arabic and sepia watercolor, allowing designs to be applied in a painterly fashion (for further examples, see Cincinnati Art Museum 2004.560 and 2004.558). Close to the center is a wall or banner bearing the letters “VAL CO NR”, most likely latin abbreviation for “Valaria (or Valerie) coniux NR”, meaning “Valeria/rie, the wife of NR” (husband’s initials)”. According to 18th c parish records, the name Valeria was more common in England and Germany, while Valerie was more typically French.

The subject would have been a very fashionable lady in her day: she wears a low-cut muslin dress then known as “chemise à la reine” (the Queen’s undergarment), so named after Marie Antoinette, who helped to popularize it (and indeed wears one in her 1783 portrait by Vigée Le Brun). Whereas gowns from a few years prior were made from opaque fabrics like silk brocade, the c. 1780 ‘chemise’ was soft, sheer, loose-fitting, and made from costly Dhaka muslin imported from India. In reality a gown, it was called a ‘chemise’ due to its resemblance to the chemise undergarment of the period. 1780s portraits show women in white with accents of blue ribbon, their hair styled in a loose but voluminous coiffure of soft curls (see Madame Grand by Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Portrait of a Lady in Blue by Thomas Gainsborough, Lady Lemon and Lady Altamont by George Romney). The resulting look was both effervescent and enchantingly flirtatious. A 1786 excerpt published in The Lady’s Magazine, written by a husband admirous of his wife’s appearance, encapsulates the ideal look of the decade: “She had nothing on but a white muslin chemise, tied carelessly with celestial blue bows […] Her hair hung in ringlets down to the bottom of her back” (quoted p. 92 of The History of Underclothes by C. Willett Cunnington).
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