Art
This miniature portrait, painted on ivory the size of a postage stamp, shows a man holding a drinking glass. These intimate likenesses were luxury goods—costly, personal keepsakes exchanged among friends and family, or worn in lockets close to the heart.
Art · Full story
You hold it up to the light and the ivory glows. The brushstrokes are impossibly fine—each hair, each fold of fabric rendered in watercolor so delicate it seems to shimmer. A gentleman gazes back at you, glass raised, captured forever in this fragment no bigger than your thumbnail.
Reflect
What small, precious object do you carry or keep close today that holds someone's memory?