Lover’s eyes.

The obsession for Lover’s Eyes flourished for only a short time, but this is a story made for romantics.

I find brilliant the idea of giving a painting of one's eye to someone really dear to one's heart, when making a traditional portrait is not an option (for one reason or another).

With time, the purpose of the eye portrait was partially refocused from secret love to remembrance. In both cases, decorated with a tear or depicted as gazing through clouds, the miniatures evoked powerful sentiment.

I have heard an interesting opinion - seeing and studying one lover’s eye is mesmerizing, but if you are surrounded by a whole collection of such pieces, it can provoke a very unpleasant nervousness and discomfort. These souvenirs of the past are filled with so intense energy we actually start feeling it and try to evitate it, unconsciously.

This is why I don’t want to exaggerate by posting too many examples here… let me share just several of them that I find particularly mysterious and beautiful.

With an estimated fewer than 1,000 Lover’s Eyes surviving and because of the secrecy surrounding them, we’ll never know who they are, the artists who painted them; nor for whom they were intended.
We can only imagine the stories behind them and we can pretty much relate to them also, since basic human sentiments remain the same as several hundred years ago.