Thomas Hardy, poet and author, was one of only four miniatures that Christine painted. This was commissioned by her step-father, Oliver Butcher, who thought it would sell when he exhibited it in the lobby of the Royal Hotel in Weymouth, where he worked part time in his retirement as their accountant. Thomas Hardy used to live in nearby Dorchester and his novels such as The Mayor of Casterbridge and Tess of the d’Urbervilles often featured Weymouth and the surrounding “Wessex” countryside. The movie Far from the Madding Crowd was filmed around this time and many of the cast stayed at the hotel.

Regarding the technique used to paint the miniatures, Christine used a very simple wooden stick with a single small woodcock’s pin-feather mounted in the end. When the feather would wear and become dull, she would use tweezers to stick a new one in its place. Apparently, this was the traditional favored brush of Victorian miniaturists. For the substrate of the painting, she used a product called Ivorine, a small sheet of Cellulose Nitrate that had the appropriate color and texture to simulate the ivory sheets used by miniaturists in less enlightened times. The traditional oval shape was the product of slicing those ivory tusks in cross-section. Be sure to click on the source image to see a greatly magnified view of the original.

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