Anson Dickinson, John Wesley Jarvis, Joseph Wood, Henry Inman of Philadelphia, and Charles Cromwell Ingham, may also be mentioned among the miniature painters of the early nineteenth century, together with Sarah Goodridge, a protégé of Gilbert Stuart's, and whose work reached a great degree of excellence about 1840, and later John Henry Brown.
PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN, BY ISAAC A. JOSEPHI
In the possession of the New York Historical Society
About this time miniature painting began to decline, owing to the introduction of the daguerreotype and the photograph. Such American artists as devoted their efforts to miniature painting struggled on without sufficient recognition until, feeling the need of organization and the encouragement in this branch of art that an association would lend, the American Society of Miniature Painters was founded in 1899 by William J. Baer, Alice Beckington, Lucia Fairchild Fuller, Laura Coombs Hills, John A. McDougall, Virginia Reynolds, Theodora M. Thayer, and William J. Whittemore. It was the intention of the Society to hold annual exhibitions, where the work of all American miniaturists could be passed upon by a competent jury and then be seen by the public. The first annual exhibition was held in January, 1900, at the Galleries of Messrs. Knoedler & Co., New York City. Isaac A. Josephi, prominent as a miniaturist at this time, became its first president, and is accredited with the conception of the Society. William J. Baer, sometime president and afterwards treasurer of the Society, contributed largely through his efforts to make the Society the factor that it has since become in the art world.
The impetus thus given to miniature painting led, unfortunately, to the production of cheap substitutes of artistic work in the form of colored photographs made to simulate miniatures. These tawdry imitations were sold broadcast to undiscriminating persons, and did much toward creating the opinion that a miniature could not be a serious work of art. Some merely regarded miniature painting as a remarkable feat of technical skill—a "stunt," in which the feature of interest was the astonishing minuteness of detail that could be introduced on a very small area. It was to counteract this popular fallacy and encourage the work of really good artists that the American Society of Miniature Painters lent its best efforts—with the coöperation of the Pennsylvania Society of Miniature Painters,—an offshoot from the older organization.
PRIMAVERA, BY W. J. BAER
NANETTE SIEBERT, BY W. J. BAER
These exhibitions revealed a miniature art of a high order of merit. But even among examples supremely fine in quality there are to be found many productions that were simply good, honest workmanship, without inspiration. Painting on ivory is not easy of control, and it is unresponsive to the intention of the hand. The colors wash up readily, or at best are apt to be spotty and unmanageable. In consequence, the painter must resort to stippling (a process of drawing by means of dots) and repeated light touches to produce the required flow of form or surface. The results, therefore, except under the hand of a master, are apt to run to labored effects, due to the loss of freshness and directness. The expression, "It is art to hide art," may be taken to mean that an artist's results should appear comfortable, spontaneous and unrestrained.