While searching for antiques, an eye caught the attention of David and Nan Skier. The American couple were looking for "treasures" at the Boston Antiques Fair. David, a retired ophthalmologist, was passionate about history.
The eye was painted on a ring decorated with blue enamel, diamonds and pearls. They had never seen anything like it. 4 decades later, the couple has collected 158 of these mysterious miniatures with painted eyes on jewelry and other small objects, called "lovers' eyes."
They first became popular in Georgian England (1714 - 1837) as small symbols of love, passion or mourning. They are scattered throughout major museums such as the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. But the Skier couple from Alabama believe they have the largest collection in the world. They have opened an exhibition and published a book about them.
"We often say that when we bought this ring, it came with a warning and a story," says Nan Skier.
The story is said to have begun with King George IV of England, then Prince of Wales, and his intense love for a simple Catholic, Maria Fitzherbert. They were married illegally and secretly after a series of dramatic attempts by the future king to seduce her, including sending her a small watercolor painting of his eye.
At the end of his life, he was buried with a drawing of her eye. The romantic gesture began as a trend, and from around 1790 to 1830, miniature artists began to place small eyes on jewelry as precious keepsakes. But like most of the objects they collected, the Skier couple are unsure whose eye is on the ring, although it dates to around 1790.
“We don’t know anything about the date. That’s part of the intrigue of the lovers’ eyes,” explained David Skier. “They became anonymous.” The collection includes rings, pendants and bracelets, but other objects are also on display, including a pin with a stick, velvet-lined boxes, a wallet and a teacup. Some objects bear inscriptions, others contain tufts of hair.
There are also subgroups of objects where sensual lips are painted. ©LAPSI.al
