Drawn just before the close of the seventeenth century, this may be the earliest recorded miniature by Forster, who is known exclusively for a small group of about twenty portraits in plumbago on vellum. Plumbago is an archaic term for natural graphite, a crystallised form of carbon that was, in the past, mistaken for lead and came from a single, large deposit in the Lake District. As can be seen here, Forster’s work is, in Ellis Waterhouse’s words (see Bibliography), ‘of great elegance and minuteness.’ A very similar example is his portrait of a young boy called John St. Lo (Sotheby’s Childhood: A Loan Exhibition, 1988, no. 94; sold at Sotheby’s 11th July 1991, lot 31), one of five of members of the same family, with another being in the collections of the British Museum. The only art historians to have published on Forster (see below) rather interestingly speculated that Forster only worked privately and upon recommendation of word of mouth as there exist no portraits of notables: ‘he was a miniaturist whose portraits had a considerable vogue amongst people in a private station in life.’ It is not possible to say for certain that ours is of a boy or girl, as in the period both were frequently dressed in shifts such as this one when very young, but it was certainly drawn from life, and it is remarkable how sharp Forster’s graphite stick must have been and how exacting his technique, given the extreme fineness of the work, and the irreversible nature of vellum as a medium for drawing... read more in n Gallery Notes Summer 2026