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I don't know why, but "Rebecca Willoughby" even sounds like a "right" name for a painter of miniatures. Though imagine the challenge of getting the signature painted in there -- like those fair booths where they carve your name on a grain of rice.
I first encountered miniatures in their own dedicated sections at exhibitions in Australia, so perhaps it is an Empire or European tradition. They were often spellbinding in their quality and detail. I wonder if the compact size was responsive to small, modest living quarters or the need to more easily move one's belongings from place to place, and then it simply developed as an independent genre or motif.
I have two splendid 2x3-inch landscapes I purchased Down Under, and I only subsequently learned that the artist also did large format landscapes as well. He said that the miniatures took him every bit as long to do as the large formats, but he could only sell them for about 1/10 as much. Buyers equated tiny with presumptively inexpensive. I suppose that could be a big disincentive for a "pocket portrait" artist, assuming one was trying to pay the rent with proceeds.
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