A single painted eye. No name. No face. Just enough of a portrait for one person to know exactly who was looking back.
LOVER'S EYES · THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART · PUBLIC DOMAIN ·
ORIGINAL SOURCE
Love, hidden in plain sight.
Lover's Eye miniatures became fashionable in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Instead of a full portrait, the sitter offered only the most intimate fragment: an eye.
The identity could remain secret to everyone except the person who received it.
Set into jewelry and keepsakes, these tiny portraits became private messages worn close to the body.
A portrait disguised as a secret.
SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM · PUBLIC DOMAIN ·
SOURCE
