For his seventieth birthday in 1887, the Russian painter Ivan Aivazovsky gave each of his 150 dinner guests a unique miniature painting, about 10.6 by 7.3 centimetres, set into a studio photograph of himself holding a brush. The artist was famous for huge seascapes such as The Ninth Wave, which is more than 3 metres wide, so the tiny works show he could work at a very different scale. Two versions of the photograph exist, with him looking at the canvas in one and at the audience in the other. Some of the paintings are dated after 1887, suggesting he kept giving them away for years.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.