Author Description

Book Published to accompany the exhibition Artists of the Tudor Court: the portrait miniature rediscovered 1520-1620 held at the Victoria and Albert Museum 9 July - 9 November 1983. Includes 32 page section at the center of the book with 107 plates. [Excerpt from front jacket flap] This concise and informative book, written by the foremost technical expert, answers questions that have puzzled and intrigued scholars and laymen alike. How were portrait miniatures painted? In what conditions? What was the status of the miniature painter? From where did the tradition derive? Who influenced the great miniaturists Hilliard and Oliver? Jim Murrell makes some startling and highly original conclusions about the authorship of hitherto unidentified masterpieces. In particular he identifies the composition in Hilliard's great Young Man Among Roses as the work of Isaac Oliver, Hilliard's one-time student. Art historians will find Part One, where Mr Murrell identifies idiosyncracies of technique and establishes individual oeuvres, provocative and controversial. Part Two where the limner s studio practices are discussed offers a fascinating insight into the fastidious world of the portrait miniaturist, and details the brushes, pigments, material and disciplines essential to the precise craft of limning. The author shows that it was only impeccable craftsmanship that made these tiny paintings e. And that this highly specialised art form was based on technical knowledge handed from master to pupil in a continuous studio tradition. This is a scholarly book but the layman will wind it entertaining and rewarding. It is because Jim Murrell opens up the whole world of the limner that this study is so valuable and revealing, for it affords not just an understanding of the miniaturist's technique but also a vision of the limner at work - the harsh discipline of the studio, the struggle for social and artistic acclaim, and the awesome and un-Elizabethan austerity of his life.