The two portrait miniatures are only a few centimetres tall, and were painted in 1590 by Isaac Oliver, a wonderfully accomplished miniaturist active in England during the second part of the reign of Elizabeth I, and onwards into the reign of James I. Many miniatures by Oliver have visited the V&A Science Section over the years, and since the early 2000s we have been building up our knowledge about his preferred materials and methods.
We don’t know much about the girls, but it seems reasonable to suggest that they are sisters: they do share a family resemblance! The inscriptions reveal that one girl was 4, and the other 5, when they were painted.