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William Shakespeare
associated with John Taylor
circa 1610
NPG 1

Tacita Dean’s His Picture in Little has been conceived in dialogue with the Gallery’s collection of late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century portrait miniatures. It will be displayed among a group of works that demonstrate the techniques used in miniature painting and provide a glimpse of the context in which miniatures were created, through reference to their function and patronage, and their traces in the imaginative world of the English literary renaissance. The selection includes works by the foremost practitioners of the art of miniature painting in England, Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver, and portraits of writers, such as William Shakespeare and John Donne, who wove miniatures into contemporary culture through references in their plays and poems.