222 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



June, 19 13 



A Silhouette portrait of J. Miers of Leeds. The advertisement on the back of this is here shown. The Silhouette to the left is on plaster and 



was made by Miers and Field 



files laid down on white paper or ex- 

 tremely delicately tinted backgrounds. 



It is, of course, erroneous to suppose 

 that the Silhouette proper always con- 

 sisted of a cut-out profile. As we have 

 seen, some were painted in black on 

 white paper, while in 1770 Christopher 

 Sharp, of Cambridge, etched his por- 

 traits on copper and "ran off" as many 

 copies as his clients desired. These 

 were called "Silhouettes" and in twenty 

 years this enterprising artist turned out 

 tens of thousands of portraits. That 

 they were not very highly valued is 

 shown by the fact that very few have 

 been preserved. 



Distinct from the portrait of 1750, 

 is that of forty or fifty years later. 

 Like its fore-runner the profile was 

 painted in black, but in addition it had 

 very wonderful and elaborate "acces- 

 sories." Beautiful as a miniature, 



mens of this style and period are 

 difficult to find. It is easy for even 

 the amateur collector to recognize 

 them apart from the extreme fine- 

 ness of the work for the genuine 

 have gilt brass margins of oval form 

 set in square frames of black pol- 

 ished pasteboard. 



It would require a volume to speak 

 individually of the Silhouettes in my 

 collection for each one possesses a 

 value that can best be appreciated by 

 the collector. There are few Silhou- 

 ettists of the past whose work is not 

 represented, and in many cases by 

 several specimens. All are in excellent 

 preservation, for I am a practical col- 

 lector and believe in perfect specimens 

 whenever possible. Many have already 



been described and reproduced in 

 Characteristic portrait in Silhouette of a young English and American art magazines. 

 buck of the Georgian period Most of those shown here have not 



these portraits were adorned with delicately shaded hair and been published before, 

 head-dress while the dainty ear showed a gilded ring. No Of the Silhouettists of the nineteenth century the most 



praise is too extrava- 

 gant for these ex- 

 quisite examples, and 

 that more have not 

 survived the ravages 

 of time seems a thou- 

 sand pities. 



Another form of 

 Silhouette is that in 

 which the portrait is 

 painted in black on 

 a concave glass, the 

 hair and dress shaded 

 lighter, and the whole 

 floated over with a 

 thin coating of wax. 

 Delicate as the wing 

 of a butterfly, these 

 Silhouettes were dif- 

 ficult to preserve, 

 for in a very short 

 time the wax cracked 

 and the portrait was 

 spoilt. As a conse- 

 quence perfect speci- 



Silhouette "Lady Ailesbury in Hyde Park" 



famous was Au- 

 guste Edouart, who 

 commenced to make 

 Silhouettes in 1825. 

 It was chance that 

 led him to take up 

 the art. While 

 visiting some friends 

 he was shown two 

 or three profile 

 portraits made by 

 a machine which 

 had just been in- 

 vented. Edouart 

 was asked if he did 

 not think them "won- 

 derful," and when 

 told whom they rep- 

 resented, he replied 

 by saying they were 

 "execrable." A child, 

 he said, could do 

 better, and in order 

 to prove his point 

 he seized a pair of 



