From Holbein to the arrival of photography, the English have always kept a special place in their affections for the miniature.  No other country has supported such an unbroken succession of miniatures and flourishing development for so long. More closely bound up with people’s lives than any other art form, these portraits provide, in Sir Roy Strong’s happy image, a ‘keyhole’ into the lives of Tudors, Stuarts, Georgians and Victorians. The aim of this lecture is to provide a tour through three centuries of wonderful portraiture and the changing ages they represent: a tapestry of English history seen through the eyes of its miniaturists.