Bracelet with portrait miniature

The custom of dressing children in coral necklaces and bracelets to safeguard them from illness and danger was transported from Europe to colonial America, where it continued into the nineteenth century. Most coral used in colonial America was imported from Italy, by way of England. Smooth, slightly cylindrical beads were favored for stringing into necklaces and bracelets. Today eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century coral bead jewelry is rare, since so much of it was taken apart and the beads re-purposed. The clasp on this bracelet incorporates a miniature portrait of an unknown gentleman, painted in watercolor on ivory and mounted under glass. The portrait is attributed to the Irish-born miniaturist John Ramage, who lived in London and then Halifax, Nova Scotia, before moving in 1775 to Boston, where he established himself as a miniature painter and goldsmith. In 1776 he returned to Halifax with a Loyalist regiment, but soon moved to British-occupied New York City, where he became the city’s leading miniaturist. His sitters included such luminaries as George Washington; New York Governor George Clinton; and members of the Van Rensselaer and Van Cortlandt families.