A miniature is a small illustration used to decorate an ancient or medieval illuminated manuscript; the simple illustrations of the early codices having been miniated or delineated with that pigment.
Miniature of Sinon and the Trojan Horse, from the Vergilius Romanus, a manuscript of Virgil's Aeneid, early 5th century
Miniature of Abraham meeting angels, from the Cotton Genesis, 5th–6th century.
Miniature of seven physicians from the Vienna Dioscurides, early 6th century.
Miniature of the Annuciation to the Shepherds, from a Book of Hours (Milan, Biblioteca Trivulziana, Cod. 470).
Arabic miniature
Videos
Arabic miniatures are small paintings on paper, usually book or manuscript illustrations but also sometimes separate artworks that occupy entire pages. The earliest example dates from around 690 AD, w
Miniature (illuminated manuscript)
…small paintings to be kept in albums, which are also called miniatures, as the Western equivalents in watercolor and other media are not. These include Arabic miniatures, and their Persian, Mughal, Ottoman and other Indian offshoots. The earliest extant miniatures are a series of uncolored pen drawings in the Chronograph…
9th century Qur'anic fragments written in Kufic script.
The 7th Maqāma of Al-Hariri, illustration by the Abbasid artist Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti from the 1237 manuscript (BNF ms. arabe 5847).
kitab fawa'id al hayawan, Pierpont Morgan Library
ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharāʾib al-mawjūdāt, library of Bavaria