They’d dressed him in his best for the sitting, right down to the blue ribbon in his little lace cap. He held a fold of his clothes in one small fist and looked straight at the painter, rosy cheeked and as solemn as only a very little boy can be.

This Georgian portrait miniature is set in a finely patterned oval frame of 15 karat gold and can be worn as either a brooch or a pendant. It measures 1 5/8 inches long by 1 1/2 inches wide and weighs 14.4 grams. The reverse is engraved, “Griffith the Son of Sir Griffith Boynton Bar [?] and Mary, his wife Aged One Year and seven months, Feb 17, 1771.”

There’s something especially dear about those last two words, “seven months,” when every month was still worth counting.