miniature

Since the 17th century, the term has been applied to all types of manuscript illustration on account of a mistaken etymology: the word was connected with `minute' (small). What we today call a `miniature' was called historia in the Middle Ages and the portraits painted by Hilliard and others were named `limnings' or `pictures in little' by the Elizabethans. They were painted on vellum or occasionally on ivory or card, and in the 17th and 18th centuries there was a vogue for miniatures done in an enamelling technique. The portrait miniature developed from a fusion of the traditions of medieval illumination and the Renaissance medal and flourished from the early 16th century to the mid 19th century, when photography virtually killed it as a serious art form.