page_title: Gothic boxwood miniature
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: Gothic boxwood miniature / Production
caption_attribution_description: Britain Loves Wikipedia at the Victoria and Albert Museum Portable Shrine English: Miniature altar (portable shrine) 1500-20 Probably Northern Netherlands Boxwood and silver Carved boxwood roundels of religious scenes were a Netherlandish speciality of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. Many of them acted as pendant beads for rosaries. Within about fifty years of having been carved, the roundel was incorporated into a mount in the form of a 'house-altar'. These were free-standing small images, some portable, which were intended for domestic use in private prayer. The lay couple kneeling at the prayer desks are the original owners of the carving, and the saints presenting them to the Virgin and Child and Saint Anne would have been their patrons, perhaps even their name saints. Collection ID: 225-1866 This photo was taken as part of Britain Loves Wikipedia in February 2010 by David Jackson.
context_page_description: Gothic boxwood miniatures are very small Christian wood sculptures produced during the 15th and 16th centuries in the Low Countries, at the end of the Gothic period and during the emerging Northern Renaissance. They consist of highly intricate layers of reliefs, often rendered to nearly microscopic level, and are made from boxwood, which has a fine grain and high density suitable for detailed micro-carving. There are around 150 surviving examples; most are spherical rosary beads, statuettes, skulls, or coffins; some 20 are in the form of polyptychs, including triptych and diptych altarpieces, tabernacles and monstrances. The polyptychs are typically 10–13 cm in height. Most of the beads are 10–15 cm in diameter and designed so they could be held in the palm of a hand, hung from necklaces or belts, or worn as fashionable accessories.
  Boxwood miniatures were highly prized in the early 16th century. Their iconography, form, and utility can be linked to medieval ivory carvings, as well as contemporary illuminated miniatures, altarpieces, panel paintings, sculpture, woodcuts, and engravings.
context_section_description: Boxwood is a dense hardwood with fine grain, resistant to splitting and chipping—ideal for wood carving. In the 16th century, woodcut blocks used for woodblock printing were usually made of boxwood. Uses for boxwood were similar to those for ivory in medieval carvings, but boxwood was a far less expensive option than ivory. Designs were overseen by master craftsmen who must have had access to prints and woodcuts of contemporary works of art, and who were apparently influenced by diptych and triptych panel paintings.
  Boxwood grows slowly, so the trunk remains fairly narrow, a fact that limits the size of any carvings made from any single piece. The wood assumes an even, soft and tactile surface if polished or frequently handled, such as was the case for prayer nuts. The wood loses its tactility when painted, explaining why most of the miniatures are in monochrome. Polychromy reduced the legibility of the carvings, "quite apart from the difficulty of effectively coloring such tiny and complex scenes" as the art historian Frits Scholten has noted.
  The tools used in production were similar to those used in the production of larger altarpieces; they included saws, planes, card scrapers, chisels, augers, braces, and gimlets. Wood was cut into the required dimensions as blocks, after which the joints were carved out. Prayer beads were turned on a lathe. The woodcutters carved a single block of boxwood into a sphere, cut it in half, hollowed it out, and attached a fastening hinge and carrying loops. The carvings in the interiors were typically made separately from the smaller hemispheres and later fitted onto an outer shell. In some cases, these wooden shells were placed in silver housing.
  Because of the diminutive scale of the pieces, magnifying glasses were used in their production. The very small wood pieces were difficult to brace (hold in place) during carving. They were likely positioned on a bench, between two posts, so that they could be turned around. Domed spaces, intended to evoke church architecture, were drilled or carved, and these were divided using compasses and a straightedge into pie-shaped segments. A surface plane was established onto which the reliefs were added. These were created from multiple separate wood sheets, individually produced before being joined in layers. Major figures, usually saints, were carved from single blocks of wood. Relief components were either glued into prefixed niches, or they were bound with pegs, which were sometimes functional and obviously visible or implanted into the relief form. Because of this layered structure, they are often fragile.
  An example of this layering technique is in the Last Judgement prayer bead (AGO 29365) attributed to Adam Dircksz and now located at the Art Gallery of Ontario, where some thirty minuscule, individually carved spikes are set into the ceiling vault and around Christ to suggest rays of light. Punctuations in the wood suggesting stars were added to the ceiling via tiny drilled holes.
  The level of detail indicates the use of magnification in their production, probably with the same instruments used by contemporary jewellers. Describing these intricacies, the art historian Eve Kahn writes that the works can be so rich that "individual feathers are visible on angel wings, and dragon skins are textured with thick scales. Crumbling shacks are shown with shingles missing from their gabled roofs. Saints' robes and soldiers' uniforms are trimmed with buttons and embroidery, and there are minute representations of jewelry and rosary beads".
caption: Miniature altarpiece, boxwood and silver, c. 1500–20 (boxwood) 1550-70 (silver), Netherlandish. Height: 9.3 cm.[18] Victoria and Albert Museum, London
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS IMAGING CORP.", "Image Model": "FE320,X835,C540", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2018:11:25 20:27:51", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 37, 0, 1, 0, 20, 0, ... ]", "Image ExifOffset": "992", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1742", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5817", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/4", "EXIF FNumber": "57/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Creative", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:02:13 14:34:37", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:02:13 14:34:37", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "1", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-3/10", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "163/50", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "173/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2448", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2644", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1616", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "-920"}