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A portrait miniature is a miniature portait painting, usually executed in gouache or watercolor.
Portrait miniatures began to flourish in 16th-century Europe and the art was practiced during the 17th and 18th centuries. It was especially valuable in introducing people to each other over distances; a nobleman proposing the marriage of his daughter might send a courier with her portrait to visit potential suitors. Soldiers and sailors might carry miniatures of their loved ones while travelling, or a wife might keep one of her husband while he was away.
The first miniaturists used watercolor to paint on stretched vellum, but in the 18th century, miniatures were also painted on ivory and enamel. As small in size as 40mm × 30mm (1½ in. × 1¼ in.), portrait miniatures were often used as personal mementos or as jewelry or snuff box covers.
In the second half of the 19th century, the development of daguerreotypeThe daguerreotype is a type of photograph, but, unlike modern photographs, it has no negative. Instead, it is an image exposed directly onto a mirror-polished surface of silver housed in a velvet-lined folding case. While the daguerreotype was not the firs and photographA photograph (often just called a photo is an image (or a representation of that on e. paper) created by collecting and focusing electromagnetic radiation. The most common photographs are those created of visible wavelengths, producing permanent records os contributed to the decline in popularity of the miniatures.