The world in a pinhead.

• Author: Jacobson, Daniel
• Position: Manuel Andrade del Soto's oil paintings on 13 pinheads

WILD RIVERS running through a cedar forest amongst giraffes; iced mountain peaks silhouetted against the timid fuchsia horizon; knights and satined ladies descending from a castle to cheer the brave contestants at the tournament--these are some of the scenes painted by Ecuadoran Manuel Andrade del Soto on the heads of 13 pins, each no larger than 1.5 millimeters in diameter. Using oil paint and a single hair of a pine-martin (the finest of all hairs) as a brush, Del Soto created incredibly realistic scenes from his life experiences.

Born in Ecuador in the early 1900s, del Soto became a professional bullfighter at a young age, performing in the plazas of Central and South America where bullfights were still a popular form of entertainment. In 1929, Del Soto's career was suddenly ended by a nearly fatal accident in the ring. Badly wounded and disabled, he channeled his energies into creating these thirteen miniature paintings.

Sometime after the Korean War, the pinheads became the property of Emilio Salanova, a Spanish tenor who was touring the Americas with the famous Compania de Zarzuelas de Luis Sagivela. When Salanova arrived in Havana, Cuba, he was contacted by a U.S.-naturalized Argentine businessman, Eduardo Orsini, who was interested in purchasing the collection. A year later in Buenos Aires, the transaction was completed for the amount of US $11,000, with the condition that Orsini keep the collection as one entity. Orsini promptly returned to Cuba with the miniatures which were exhibited at the Escuela de Bellas...