The Look of Love: Miniature Eye Paintings Once Exchanged as Secret, Romantic Tokens

Flowers, sweet notes, and romantic dinners are among the common things people give to show love, but centuries ago, it was their eyeballs.

That’s not as gruesome as it may sound. No one plucked out their actual eye as a token of affection. The eyes were miniature paintings.

Set in boxes, gilded frames, and most commonly pieces of jewelry, these tiny watercolor eye portraits, often no bigger than a fingernail, were mainly exchanged between lovers to proclaim their affections for one another secretly.

Now known as “lover’s eyes,” these rare pieces are highly sought-after and prized by collectors.

Though the Metropolitan Museum of Art notes that eye portraits were introduced in France, their origins are popularly traced back to the forbidden romance that began in 1784 between Prince George of Wales (England’s future King George IV) and Maria Anne Fitzherbert.

When the prince met Fitzherbert, he was instantly smitten and ardently pursued her to be his wife. He was 21 at the time, and the twice-widowed Fitzherbert was 27. Their romance was deemed controversial because she was a commoner and devout Catholic, while he was a royal Protestant. Marriage between these religions was forbidden at the time, so when he proposed, Fitzherbert fled the country to avoid trouble.

To woo her back, the lovesick prince sent her a passionate letter in 1785 begging her again to marry him. But instead of a proposal ring, Fitzherbert got an unexpected romantic token: a painting of his right eye gazing intently back at her.

According to art historian Hanneke Grootenboer, the prince wrote, “I send you a Parcel … and I send you at the same time an Eye, if you have not totally forgotten the whole countenance. I think the likeness will strike you.”

Strike her it did: Fitzherbert went back to England, and the two had a clandestine wedding. To bind their union, she later gave her husband a painting of her own eye tucked into a locket that he wore as a memento of her love.

Though their marriage wasn’t considered legal because the king hadn’t given his consent, and it eventually ended, the romantic lore of the eye paintings endured and sparked a decades-long trend of exchanging them.

Unlike a full-face portrait, a painting of only one eye was intriguing and mysterious. They also made it harder to discern who the eye belonged to, turning them into tiny windows of secret love, generally recognizable only to the recipient.

Wealthy lovers across Europe soon exchanged these intimate ocular portraits, allowing them to carry a piece of each other wherever they went without revealing their identities to the world.

Because social rules limited public interaction between the opposite sex, glances were more easily exchanged than words. Different glances conveyed different emotions and messages that lovers’ eyes expressed, including adoration, love, lust, melancholy, longing, and even the watchful gaze of someone jealous that their partner might stray.

But eye portraits weren’t limited to romantic relationships; some were also created to remember lost loved ones, and a poignant reminder of someone who may no longer be physically present but was still watching over the wearer from afar.

Painted in watercolor on ivory, lovers’ eyes were set in bracelets, brooches, lockets, pendants, rings, and stickpins for women, and for men, snuff boxes, toothpick cases, and other small containers that could be worn close to the heart or tucked into a pocket. Many also contained some of the giver’s hair.

The gemstones and other materials that frame eye miniatures give clues as to what a piece symbolized. Coral, for example, warded off the evil eye, diamonds showed off a giver’s wealth, and garnets signified friendship. A piece decorated with pearls usually meant it was in remembrance of a loved one.

Queen Victoria revived the popularity of eye miniatures for use as presentation pieces, though their focus was more as memorial jewelry and less as representing secret love. The queen commissioned eye portraits of her children, other relatives, and many of her friends, most of which were painted by Sir William Charles Ross, her royal miniaturist.

By around 1830, however, as photography became popular and provided real portraits that could be shared more widely, interest in lovers’ eyes began to dwindle, though they continued to be made into the twentieth century. Eye portraits made from around the mid-nineteenth century on are generally larger in size and generic fashion pieces, rather than deeply personal love tokens.

Authentic lover’s eyes are incredibly rare today, as they are such tiny and fragile pieces. It’s believed that only around 1,000 genuine examples still exist, making them hotly pursued and coveted by collectors and historians for their artistry, mystery, sentimental value, and insights they provide into past social norms.

Despite their scarcity, some collectors have been able to build impressive collections. The most notable collectors are Nan and David (a retired ophthalmologist) Skier of Alabama, who have the largest known collection of lovers’ eyes, with over 100 pieces that have been exhibited at various museums.

The Skiers’ collection is detailed in the 2021 book, Lover’s Eyes: Eye Miniatures from the Skier Collection by Elle Shushan. While the book is unfortunately out of print, copies periodically pop up on eBay and other online marketplaces.

The Skiers also talk about their collection and share the fascinating stories behind some of their eye portraits in a Harmony Talk podcast from November 2025, available at harmonytalkpodcast.com/post/nan-and-david-skier-encore.
As genuine life portraits are so rare, the Skiers note that most lovers’ eyes on the market today are later fashion pieces or, unfortunately, fakes, made by cutting out an eye from a period miniature portrait and placing it in an antique jewel casing.

When considering a piece, study it carefully with a jeweler’s loop. The watercolor should be on ivory and have brush strokes that would have been made with a super tiny paintbrush.

Generic eye portraits are more attainable and still appealing to collectors. Price results on eBay and LiveAuctioneers.com show that over the past few years, antique eye miniatures have sold between $500 and $16,000. The oldest pieces and those with gemstones or semi-precious materials command the highest prices.

Lover’s eyes have enjoyed renewed popularity in the past few years, thanks to being worn by a character in the first season of the wildly popular Netflix series Bridgerton to trace her romantic journey.

Some contemporary artists are also putting their own spin on them, such as Susannah Carson, who paints lovers’ eyes and sets them in antique saucers and dishes. She also makes other items, including ornaments, fashioned after eye miniatures in museums. Her work can be seen at susannahcarson.com.

Though it remains a mystery as to whom the vast majority of people these eye portraits were of, one thing is certain: they depict people conveying love, and it’s this power of love that makes lovers’ eyes still captivating centuries after they were first created.