Lively Limning: Presence in Portrait Miniatures and John White’s Images of the New World

Abstract

Nicholas Hilliard's portrait miniatures are often regarded as unrealistic, artificial, and highly stylised fabrications, yet contemporary accounts frequently described them as "lively". This complex word points towards a period conception of vividness, one that-in the case of limning-is intimately tied up with the materials and working methods of the limner. This, in turn, reflects on another genre of images, those of the New World painted by John White in the 1580s. While White's images have often been placed in the long tradition of European watercolours, a more convincing view situates them within the Elizabethan vogue for limning. By considering limning's reputation for immediacy and vividness in relation to these two genres of image, this paper foregrounds their vivid and persuasive effects, before considering how the "estrangfull" connotations of Virginian culture may have returned with White's limnings to reflect again on later miniatures of costumed masquers at the Jacobean court.