{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O75456"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O75456/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AP6245/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AP6245/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2006AP6245","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2019LY0798","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O75456/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O75456","accessionNumber":"P.12-1962","objectType":"Portrait Miniature","titles":[{"title":"Self-Portrait","type":"generic title"}],"summaryDescription":"This self-portrait miniature by Anne Mee shows two popular pathways for female artists in the eighteenth century: miniature painting and self-portraiture. Because of their intimate nature and small scale, miniature painting was considered more appropriate for women artists, who also benefited from the small size and portability of the materials needed to paint these delicate watercolour pictures on ivory. While many women artists would go on to find extensive patronage and commissions, their access to sitters was sometimes restricted early in their training. One subject was always available: your own likeness. This portrait miniature may have been painted by Anne Mee herself. It remains one of her most remarkable works, demonstrating the artist's soft but intensely emotive technique and her Romantic tendencies.\n\nAnne Mee (b. Foldsone, ca. 1770-1851) was a British miniature painter active in the early nineteenth century. She likely trained with her father, John Foldsone, before taking lessons with George Romney. Her portrait practice supported the family financially after the passing of Mee’s father in 1784. In 1788, the poet William Hayley wrote of Mee:\r\n\r\n ‘I am sitting for him [George Romney] to a young female genius in miniature, who, at the age of seventeen, will, I trust, under his patronage, most comfortably raise, and support by her wonderful talent, a drooping family.’\r\n\r\nMee was celebrated during her lifetime and gained the patronage of Queen Charlotte and the Prince of Wales. Her husband, Joseph Mee, was supportive of her practice, though the diarist Farrington remarked that he ‘consented to let her paint ladies only who were never to be attended by gentlemen.’ Though reserved, he must have understood the financial incentives in letting Mee continue to paint: her practice was exceptionally lucrative, surpassing prices charged by male contemporaries like Richard Cosway. Mee exhibited at the Royal Academy and the British Institution between 1804 and 1837.","physicalDescription":"Portrait miniature on ivory of a woman, turned slightly to right and looking to front, wearing a cream dress, her hair about her shoulders and fabric around her head, set in a metal frame.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Mee, Anne","id":"A7723"},"association":{"text":"artist","id":"AAT25103"},"note":"Anne Mee (b. Foldsone, ca. 1770-1851) was a British miniature painter active around the turn of the nineteenth century. She was likely taught by her father John Foldsone before taking lessons with George Romney. Mee in turn may have taught Mary Barret (fl. 1797-1836), who also took lessons with Romney. Upon Mee’s father’s death in 1784, she turned to miniature painting to substitute the family’s income. By 1790, Mee had the patronage of Queen Charlotte and the Prince of Wales. She married the Irish barrister Joseph Mee in 1793 and exhibited from 1804. Her husband, though supportive of her career, only allowed her to paint female sitters. Still, her career was lucrative. She regularly charged 40 guineas for a miniature portrait – more than the 30 guineas that Cosway had charged the Prince of Wales for a miniature of the queen in 1795."}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"watercolour","id":"AAT15045"},{"text":"ivory","id":"AAT11857"}],"techniques":[{"text":"watercolour painting","id":"THES250889"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Watercolour on ivory","categories":[{"text":"Portraits","id":"THES48906"},{"text":"Paintings","id":"THES48917"},{"text":"Miniatures","id":"THES269968"},{"text":"Woman Artist","id":"THES387590"}],"styles":[{"text":"Georgian","id":"AAT21048"},{"text":"British School","id":"x30967"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2006AP6245","2019LY0798"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"90A (VA)","id":"THES49164"},"free":"","case":"13","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"miniature (painting)","id":"AAT33936"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Britain","id":"x32019"},"association":{"text":"painted","id":"x30138"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"ca. 1795","earliest":"1790-01-01","latest":"1799-12-31"},"association":{"text":"painted","id":"x30138"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Given by Mrs Arthur R. Fuller","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"76","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"57","unit":"mm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"","value":"","unit":"","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Height","value":"84","unit":"mm","qualifier":"framed","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Height","value":"94","unit":"mm","qualifier":"framed (with loop)","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"69","unit":"mm","qualifier":"framed","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"Dimensions taken from <u>Victoria & Albert Museum Department of Prints and Drawings and Department of Paintings, Accessions 1962</u>. London: HMSO, 1964.","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"","historicalContext":"Portrait miniatures were frequently exchanged between loved ones and family in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain as tokens of affection and remembrance. ","briefDescription":"Portrait Miniature, Self-Portrait of Anne Mee, watercolour on ivory, ca. 1795","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"<u>Victoria & Albert Museum Department of Prints and Drawings and Department of Paintings, Accessions 1962</u>. London: HMSO, 1964."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Anne Mee, <i>The gallery of beauties in the court of his most excellent majesty George the Third</i>, London, 1812."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Paris A. Spies-Gans, <i>A Revolution on Canvas: The Rise of Women Artists in Britain and France, 1760-1830</i>, New Haven and London: Yale University Press and Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2022, p. 246. "},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Katherine Coombs, <u>The Portrait Miniature in England</u>, V&A Publications, 1998, pp.87-92."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Katherine Coombs, <i>Finney, Samuel (1719-1798)</i>', <u>Oxford Dictionary of National Biography</u>, Oxford University Press, 2004."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Damiët Schneeweisz, Rosalind McKever, and Adriana Concin. The Portrait Miniature: A New History. London: Thames & Hudson  and the V&A, 2026."},{"reference":{"text":"Damiët Schneeweisz, Rosalind McKever, and Adriana Concin. <i>The Portrait Miniature: A New History</i>. London: Thames & Hudson and the V&A, 2026.","id":"AUTH411474"},"details":"","free":""}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[{"text":"Mee, Anne","id":"N1866"}],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"self-portraits","id":"AAT124534"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["P.12-1962"],"accessionNumberNum":"12","accessionNumberPrefix":"P","accessionYear":1962,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":["2026PM5636","2026PM2853","2025PJ7603"],"recordModificationDate":"2026-02-10","recordCreationDate":"2003-02-26","availableToBook":false}}