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  • A Miniature for My Mother
  • Julia Ridley Smith (bio)

Aside from a few patches of white where the color has scratched off, the brooch is in good condition—a tiny painting on ivory, set in a gold mount. No jewels. It has been well cared for. The image is of a young man in black clothes leaning against a pedestal topped with an urn. Hair-thin lines make up his cravat, his face, the blades of grass at his feet, and the serifs of the pedestal's inscription: Sacred be thy memory. He leans on his right elbow, his head resting on his hand; his left arm hangs by his side, holding an open book. Over the tomb, there's a hint of tree branches, behind them blue sky. Around the edge of the pin, there are gold letters: Rebecca Wilkinson * nat * 7 May 1771 * OB: 23 JAN * 1793.

January 23—that's my mother's birthday, and the pin belonged to her. What was a sad day for young Rebecca's family in 1793 was presumably a happy one for my grandparents in 1942. My mother, named Margaret Ridley after her mother and called "Ridley," was their first child, born premature and apparently not pretty, both facts my grandmother would mention in a letter she wrote to her in-laws shortly after the birth. In this letter, she instructs them not to make excuses to people about why she's had a baby in January when she was only just married in June. They are not to tell anybody she fell off a ladder or slipped in the tub. My grandmother knows the truth—her baby was born early—and, anyway, it's nobody's business. I doubt anybody said a word. She was only twenty-four, but people already knew better than to mess with her.

________

My grandmother left the pin to my mother, and my mother bequeathed it to me. My guess is that Rebecca Wilkinson was connected to our Ridley ancestors in Southampton County, Virginia, but I don't know for sure. Born a subject of King George III, Rebecca died a citizen of the United States, not quite two months before the second inauguration of George Washington. Her short life bookended the American Revolution, and this pin commemorating her is a thing very much of its time. As we rumbled toward nationhood, colonial nobs and their ladies were gaga for small portraits mounted in silver or gold and worn as brooches, bracelets, or pendants. They commissioned these miniatures, also known as limnings, from professional painters who are now largely forgotten. Those artists whose names we do know—Benjamin West, John Singleton Copley, the Peales—are recognizable to us today only because they also rendered the larger-scale history scenes and portraits we know from our history books, like [End Page 94] West's The Death of General Wolfe (1770) or Copley's portraits of Paul Revere, John Hancock, and Samuel Adams.

But making a fine miniature was no more "practice" for making a large oil painting than writing a short story is practice for writing a novel. They are different forms, each requiring particular skills. The limner had to cut the ivory, prepare its surface, and paint a tiny image with the aid of a small brush and magnifying glass. Anyone who tries watercolor, remembering it from childhood as a beginner's paint, will quickly discover how difficult it is to mix the pigment and water to achieve a consistency that gives the desired effect. Imagine the frustration of attempting to control such runny paint on a slick bit of ivory only a few inches in diameter, hoping to create a detailed likeness good enough to please someone who knows the sitter well, perhaps intimately. The result, done well, is irresistible—a portrait that is pretty, luminous if the ivory is thin, and eminently portable. A miniature fits in the palm of your hand; it may even be so small that you can conceal it within a fist. It can be worn secretly—tucked behind ruffles, into a pocket, or next to the breast—or it can be displayed, a sign to all...

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