[2] Miers later moved to Edinburgh, and operated in various Northern towns before setting up studios in The Strand, London around 1788.
[3] His miniatures were produced on ivory or plaster and feature delicate shading to show detail of the hair and clothes.
In 1785, Miers writes on the back of one of his images promoting the process: “preserves the most exact Symmetry and animated expression of the Features, much Superior to any other Method.
Those who have Shades by them may have them reduced to any Size, and dress’d in the present taste.”[4] Miers specialty was painting unrelieved black on plaster.
[6] Miers was well acquainted with Robert Burns as Burn's described in a letter suggesting his friend Robert Ainslee sit for a profile painting by John Miers so that he can hang "Lord Glencairn, the Dr. and you (Ainslee), in trio, over my new chimney-piece that is to be.