Miers did an enormous amount of work on plaster and ivory, in the usual 2½ to 3 inch oval size, as well as the inch to half-inch size for mounting in rings, brooches, and pins. These latter are frequently signed “Miers,” sometimes “Miers and Field.” On a fine portrait by Field, during the time of the partnership with Miers, there is an advertisement on the back; the partners set forth the announcement at this period that they
“Execute their long approved Profile Likenesses in a superior style of elegance and with that unequalled degree of accuracy as to retain the most animated resemblance and character, given in the minute sizes of Rings, Brooches, Lockets, etc. (Time of Sitting not exceeding five minutes.) Messrs. Miers & Field preserve all the original shades by which they can at any period furnish copies without the necessity of sitting again.”
In the London Directory of 1792 John Miers’ name is first mentioned as “Profilist and Jeweller, 111, Strand”; in 1817, in the London Directory, “Miers & Son, Profilists and Jewellers”; ten years later, in Kent’s London Directory, 1827, “Miers & Field, Profilists and Jewellers”; and in the London Directory of the same date, “Profile Painters and Jewellers.”
Miers is frequently called the Cosway of silhouettists. This name is correctly suggestive in a double sense, for not only was he amongst the most charming and successful exponents of his art, as was Cosway, but his methods and brushwork on ivory were, with well-defined limitations, identical with those of the miniaturist.
We are able to reproduce the portrait of John Field, the partner of Miers, through the courtesy of his great-grandson. This silhouette was done by himself, and that of his wife is a companion picture. Portraits also of his two daughters, Sophie, afterwards Mrs. Webster, and her sister, who married E. J. Parris, the artist who decorated the dome of St. Paul’s, are amongst an interesting collection belonging to the Field family. All these are painted on plaster, and beautified with exquisite pencilling in gold. The muslin cap and dainty neck frills of the artist’s wife are handled with great skill. Field’s shop was next door to Northumberland House, No. 11, Strand, and here he amassed a very substantial fortune. He usually had several apprentices, both male and female, in his studio, and his brother being a skilled frame-maker, the Field frames, in black papier-mâché and brass mounts, are very dainty, while the jewel work in gold and pinchbeck is always suitable and sometimes beautiful. After many years the partnership between Miers and Field was dissolved, as a cloud seems to have settled on the life of the former artist, and we have not been able to find details of his latter years.
Mrs. Beetham also painted in unrelieved black on ivory or plaster, and connoisseurs are divided in opinion as to whether her work should not bear the palm instead of that of Miers. Examples are much more rare. Her label on the portrait of a woman in cambric stock and ruffle runs thus:—
“Profiles in Miniature by
Mrs. Beetham,
No. 27, Fleet Street.
1785.”
Sometimes Mrs. Beetham cut black paper, and used a little brushwork in the more delicate hair outlines, softening the hard paper line. This artist excels not only in the delicacy of her profile portraits, but also in the way in which she depicts, with the very limited materials at her command, the texture of hair, gauze, and ribbon ornaments.
A third process employed by Mrs. Beetham was the painting on glass of flat or convex shape. The painting was done on the back of the glass, and usually a backing of wax or plaster was placed to preserve the portrait. As a consequence of this filling of wax, many of these old pictures have suffered severely from extremes of temperature, cold shrinking the wax and causing disfiguring cracks, and heat, when the portraits were hung on the chimney wall, as they so frequently were, being no less disastrous.
Occasionally a shade painted on convex glass is found with a flat composition card or plaster background, upon which, standing away behind the rounded glass on which the portrait is painted, a beautiful shadow is cast by the painting.