#exedras

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Secret glances, hidden love—eye miniatures were the ultimate 18th-century love token. These strikingly modern-looking portraits, cropped to preserve anonymity, were worn as jewelry, held close to the heart as a reminder of distant lovers.

Artists are unknown, and the Eye Miniatures featured here are English.

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The Oath of Love

after Jean Honoré Fragonard Late 19th century

Fan. Silk, paint, silver thread, paillettes; ivory, silver foil, glass or mother-of-pearl.

A romantic whisper woven in silk and shimmer, capturing the elegance of Fragonard’s era with every delicate detail.

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Orpheus, returning from Hades without Eurydice

Marie Alexandre Lucien Coudray

Partially patinated iron. 1893–99, struck in the 20th century.

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The Return of Persephone

Lord Leighton Frederic | ca. 1890–91

A moment of mythic longing and renewal—Persephone rises from the underworld, reaching for her mother, Demeter, as Hermes guides her return. Leighton’s study captures the essence of seasonal change, love, and fate, bathed in the warm glow of reunion.

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Select illustrations from East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales From the North, illustrated by Kay Nielsen (1922 edition)

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Optics: A Soap Bubble Colour mezzotint by M. Rapine after Blaise-Alexandre Desgoffe, c. 1883. An ephemeral moment made eternal: a soap bubble shimmering with interference colours, its surface holding the science of light and the wonder of transience.

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Halloween and picture postcards share a curious, intertwined history.

As the October 31st festival took shape in the early 20th century, fueled by immigrants from the British Isles, picture postcards were entering their golden era.

Once rare, by 1915, nearly 900 million had been mailed in the U.S., with some 3,000 unique Halloween-themed designs. These cards helped cement the holiday’s iconography: black cats, jack-o’-lanterns, witches’ brooms. But they also captured now-forgotten rituals like apple bobbing, scrying, and cow pranks.

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 Aurora Borealis, Frederic Edwin Church (1865)