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Peter Oliver was trained by his father Isaac Oliver, who was responsible for introducing to England the concept of the ‘cabinet miniature’. These miniatures used the format and technique of a portrait miniature to explore religious and classical subjects, often copied from or inspired by oil paintings, of which this portrait is an example.

Unlike Nicholas Hilliard, both Isaac and Peter Oliver were closely in touch with their counterparts on the continent. Isaac Oliver was the son of French Huguenot refugees, and along with his son Peter, retained contact with the international immigrant art community through marriage and travel.

The present work is an example of one of a rare group of smaller cabinet miniatures by Peter Oliver of oval shape. By the 1630s, when it was painted, miniatures (or ‘limnings’) were collected and displayed in cabinet rooms. A rare survival of such a room is the ‘green closet’ at Ham House (now owned by the National Trust at Ham, near Richmond), where William Murray, a close friend of Charles I, displayed his small treasures. The king kept his own cabinet room at Whitehall, where his curator Abraham Van der Doort recorded seventy-five limnings in total, including fourteen by Peter Oliver.[1]

These ‘histories’ or cabinet miniatures were highly prized objects for collectors, including the king. At the start of his career, Peter worked alongside his father on cabinet miniatures but in time, he became the foremost artist for such works. Avidly collected, Peter Oliver’s exquisite miniaturisations of old master paintings in the Royal Collection earned him an international reputation and when Charles ascended to the throne in 1625, Peter Oliver was made one of his officers of the chamber. Works, such as the present head, were particularly valued by intellectual circles of collectors, and by influential figures such as Theodore Turquet de Mayerne, the royal physician who had a special interest in his techniques and composition.

Although, at first, Peter Oliver’s technique paralleled that of his father’s, he began to develop his own style which closely emulated the sfumato and chiaroscuro of the great north Italian pictures he studied so closely, many of which were representative of the most advanced achievements of the Italian Renaissance. Although it has not been possible to find a source for the current work, St John the Apostle was often portrayed as a beardless youth.[2] Generally thought to be the youngest apostle, and the only one who died of natural causes, he is often presented as androgynous in painting, sculpture and literature. Compositionally, the present head study can be compared to the Head of Christ, painted circa 1615 by Isaac Oliver (V&A P15-1931), but the velvety focus of the painting, so as to fully develop transitions in light and shade, points solely to the hand of Peter.

[1] ‘Abraham Van der Doort’s Catalogue of the Collection of Charles I’, ed. Oliver Millar. Walpole Society, XXXVII 1958-60, 102-103.

[2] See for example the pen and ink drawing by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (Guercino) in the Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco, of St John the Evangelist meditating the Bible (accession no 1976.2.19).