The Look of Love: Eye Miniatures from the Skier Collection

Boettcher, Graham C, and Shushan, Elle (Contributions by), and Manning, Jo (Contributions by)

ISBN 10: 1907804013 / ISBN 13: 9781907804014

Published by Giles, 2012

About this Item

Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 208 p. Audience: General/trade.

Seller Inventory # Alibris.0012727

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Look of Love: Eye Miniatures from the Skier Collection
• Publisher: Giles
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1907804013
• ISBN 13: 9781907804014
• Binding: Hard cover
• Condition: Fine in fine dust jacket.

About this title

Synopsis

This stunning volume explores the little-known subject of "lover’s eyes," hand-painted miniatures of single human eyes set in jewellery and given as tokens of affection or remembrance. In 1785, when the Prince of Wales secretly proposed to Mrs. Maria Fitzherbert with a miniature of his own eye, he inspired an aristocratic fad for exchanging eye portraits mounted in a wide variety of settings including brooches, rings, lockets and toothpick cases.

Graham Boettcher discusses the history and function of lover’s eyes, as well as the language and symbolism of their jewelled settings; Elle Shushan examines their role in the broader context of Georgian and early Victorian portrait miniatures; and Jo Manning offers five fictional vignettes imagining the circumstances surrounding the creation of these extraordinary objects.

About the Author

Graham C. Boettcher is the William Cary Hulsey Curator of American Art at the Birmingham Museum of Art, where he oversees the collections of American fine and decorative art before 1945. Elle Shushan is among the world's foremost dealers in American and European portrait miniatures, and works with many of the leading private and public collections of miniatures. Jo Manning is a romance novelist and the author of 'My Lady Scandalous' (Simon & Schuster, 2005), a biographical account of the royal courtesan Grace Dalrymple Elliot.