Miniature Portraits in Jodi Picoult’s By Any Other Name

The Literal Object: Elizabethan Miniatures

Miniature portraits in By Any Other Name are tiny paintings on vellum, often set in lockets or brooches, meant to be worn close to the body. In Elizabethan England they were intimate luxury objects, commissioned by the wealthy to capture a loved one’s likeness. Within the novel, the miniatures are painted by Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver around 1590 and exchanged in secret between Emilia Bassano and Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton. They are never displayed publicly; Emilia hides Southampton’s portrait first in her feather bed and later in a wooden chest, while Southampton keeps Emilia’s likeness “close to his heart” beneath his doublet.

The Scenes: Commission, Exchange, and Reunion

The miniature first appears in Chapter 11, set in 1592. Southampton surprises Emilia at Hilliard’s workshop. “I already carry you close to my heart,” he tells her; “I hoped to carry your likeness there, too.” Emilia hesitates because a physical token of their affair could be discovered, a risk that might humiliate her protector, Lord Hunsdon. Yet she eventually consents, and the two sit together while Hilliard and Isaac Oliver paint both portraits simultaneously. The exchange is the most concrete symbol of their otherwise wordless, hidden bond.

The miniature returns decades later in Chapter 19. After Southampton’s death, his young son Thomas seeks out Emilia and returns her portrait. “He kept it with him, always,” the boy says. Emilia takes the brooch, then retrieves the miniature of Southampton she had kept hidden for years. She places both images side by side in her chest, noting that they are “tangible proof that, once, she had been beloved.” The private tokens outlive the men who once owned them, becoming a secret archive of a love that could never be declared.

The novel’s Author’s Note (Chapter 21) extends the symbol beyond fiction. Jodi Picoult describes visiting the Victoria and Albert Museum and seeing the real miniature of Emilia Bassano—and beside it a painting of an “unknown man” with a black background and a playing card on its back: the six of hearts. In cartomancy, the six of hearts represents romantic love that cannot last, an ephemeral affair. A later miniature of Southampton, painted about four years afterward, bears the three of hearts, a warning that another person has entered the relationship. This archival detail reinforces the doomed quality that defines Emilia and Southampton’s love throughout the novel.

Layers of Symbolism

Hidden intimacy and forbidden love. The miniatures are designed to be concealed. Southampton wears Emilia’s image under his clothing, and she hides his in a mattress. The images are visible only to the lovers themselves, mirroring the affair’s absolute secrecy. To the outside world, Emilia is Lord Hunsdon’s mistress and Southampton is an unmarried earl; the miniatures are the sole physical record of a relationship that society would condemn.

The private self behind a public mask. Emilia’s public identity is that of a courtesan and a poor ward; her private self is a poet, a playwright, and a passionate lover. The miniature acts as a material emblem of that hidden self—the real Emilia known only to Southampton and later to no one but herself. The black background on Southampton’s miniaturised portrait (described in the Author’s Note) is the choice of the sitter, a deliberate signal of despair. This detail echoes the way Emilia must hide her own ambitions and her writing behind male fronts, such as the actor Shakespeare.

Doomed love and the passing of time. The playing-card backs on the real-life artefacts—six of hearts and three of hearts—introduce an external, almost supernatural commentary. The ephemeral quality of the six of hearts aligns with the fleeting, dangerous nights Emilia and Southampton share. The three of hearts warns of a rival, which in the fictional account corresponds to Alphonso Lanier, the husband who beats Emilia and destroys any hope of reunion. Together, the cards frame their love as a temporary, fragile thing, fated to end.

Tokens of memory and legacy. After Southampton’s death, the miniatures shift from instruments of passion into relics of loss. Emilia unites them in her chest as the final private act of a woman ageing into invisibility. The images do not restore the life she might have had, but they allow her to hold a love that otherwise would leave no trace. This function mirrors the play manuscripts Emilia hands to others—artifacts that preserve her identity even when she is erased from the historical record.

Character and Theme Connections

The miniature underpins several key characters. For Emilia Bassano, it is a physical trace of her full, hidden self: a woman who loved, who wrote, and who was beloved. For Henry Wriothesley, it demonstrates a devotion that circumvents social rank; he risks scandal by carrying the portrait of a converso musician’s daughter. Even Lord Hunsdon is implicated by its absence—he never receives such a token because Emilia’s truest affection lies elsewhere.

The symbol resonates deeply with the novel’s central themes. The theme of female erasure and pseudonymous authorship is materialised here: the miniature, like the play manuscripts, is a hidden record of a woman’s actual life. It parallels the Shakespeare authorship question by showing how a true identity can be obscured by a public image. Art as resistance and legacy is embodied in the miniature’s durability—the painted face outlasts the circumstances that silenced Emilia. The gender bias in the arts is reflected in the asymmetry: Southampton can commission a portrait openly, while Emilia’s likeness must remain secret. Finally, the commodification of women appears indirectly: Lord Hunsdon treats Emilia as a possession whose body he controls, but the miniature reclaims her image as an object of her own choosing, given freely to the man she loves.

The modern-day timeline, while not directly involved with miniatures, echoes the same dynamic of hidden identity. Melina Green conceals her gender behind a male pseudonym to get her play produced, just as Emilia disguised her portrait beneath clothing. Both women guard a core self that the world is not ready to see.

Study Questions

1. Why does Emilia initially refuse to sit for a miniature portrait?

She recognizes that a physical token of her affair with Southampton would expose them both if found. Up to that point their love had left no evidence beyond a patch of crushed grass; a painted miniature would be concrete proof that could humiliate Lord Hunsdon and destroy Emilia’s security. Her reluctance highlights the constant danger she lives in as a woman without social power.

2. How does the meaning of the miniature change after Southampton’s death?

While Southampton is alive, the miniature serves as a clandestine symbol of passion and risk. After his death and his son’s return of Emilia’s portrait, it becomes a relic of memory. Emilia joins her own image with Southampton’s in a chest, transforming the two tokens into a private monument to a love that was never permitted to exist openly. The portrait shifts from a living promise to a quiet, enduring proof of what once was.

3. What do the playing cards on the backs of the real-life miniatures suggest about the nature of Emilia and Southampton’s relationship?

In cartomancy, the six of hearts on the “unknown man” miniature signifies a romantic love that is doomed to be short-lived—an ephemeral, soul‑deep connection that cannot last. The three of hearts on a later Southampton miniature warns of a rival who will intrude upon the bond. Together these symbols confirm the lovers’ relationship as deeply felt yet inevitably shattered by circumstance, mirroring the fictional arc of Emilia and Southampton.

4. How does the miniature connect to the theme of hidden authorship in the novel?

Just as Emilia’s plays are fronted by a man (first Marlowe, then Shakespeare), her portrait is concealed behind clothing and finally locked away. Both the play scripts and the miniature are true records of her identity that society would punish if revealed. The miniature becomes a motif for all that is hidden: a woman’s voice, a woman’s face, a woman’s art. The novel draws a direct line between a secret love token and the secret of who actually wrote the works attributed to William Shakespeare.