Frits Lugt and his successors were certainly attracted by the artistic quality of the miniatures, each ‘betraying such life and art that the small size of the object seems in inverse proportion to the number of impressions it engenders’. Questions of history or dynasty that often rule over the collections of miniatures in historic houses have no role here, except when the subject of the miniature belongs to the world of art. For example, the Fondation Custodia owns the portrait of Margaret Lemon, the mistress of Anthony van Dyck, painted by Samuel Cooper, the English artist considered for many years to be the greatest of the miniature painters.
Frits Lugt and his successors were certainly attracted by the artistic quality of the miniatures, each ‘betraying such life and art that the small size of the object seems in inverse proportion to the number of impressions it engenders’. Questions of history or dynasty that often rule over the collections of miniatures in historic houses have no role here, except when the subject of the miniature belongs to the world of art. For example, the Fondation Custodia owns the portrait of Margaret Lemon, the mistress of Anthony van Dyck, painted by Samuel Cooper, the English artist considered for many years to be the greatest of the miniature painters.