THE HISTORY OF SILHOUETTES
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF A PRIVATE IN AN ENGLISH REGIMENT
About the end of the 18th century
In the possession of the Author]
THE HISTORY
OF SILHOUETTES
BY
E. NEVILL JACKSON
[Illustration: THE CONNOISSEUR
A MAGAZINE FOR COLLECTORS
ILLUSTRATED]
LONDON:
THE CONNOISSEUR
1911
_All rights reserved
Copyright by E. Nevill Jackson in the United States of America, 1911._
FAR IN AND OUT, ABOVE, ABOUT, BELOW,
’TIS NOTHING BUT A MAGIC SHADOW SHOW,
PLAY’D IN A BOX WHOSE CANDLE IS THE SUN
ROUND WHICH WE PHANTOM FIGURES COME AND GO.
_Stanza XLVI.
Fitzgerald’s translation of the Rubyat of Omar Kayyam._
FOREWORD.
Amongst my reminiscences of personal belongings and the charm of old
portraiture, none has given me greater pleasure than the silhouette of
bygone days.
The souvenir, sometimes cut by gifted amateurs, was exchanged amongst
friends in my early days as the photograph is to-day. We had many at
Wolterton, our Norfolk home, and the picture of my grandmother, Lady
Orford, and the cuttings of Princess Elizabeth are amongst my treasured
possessions.
I remember Mr. Guest collected silhouettes, and had some fine examples of
the work of Miers (who lived near Exeter Change), of Rosenberg, and of
Field.
Mr. Guest was a very good judge of such things, having, by many years of
collecting, perfected a naturally cultured sense of art. Like myself, he
had learnt much from Mr. Pollard.
Lady Evelyn Cobbold shewed me three silhouettes of Mr. Cobbold, his
father, and his grandfather, all perfect portraits, and very interesting.
[Illustration: Dorothy Nevill]
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 1
CHAPTER I. BLACK PROFILE PORTRAITURE, ITS PLACE IN ART,
LITERATURE AND SOCIAL LIFE 3
CHAPTER II. THE COMING OF THE SILHOUETTE AND ITS PASSING 13
CHAPTER III. PROCESSES: (1) BRUSHWORK 20
CHAPTER IV. PROCESSES: (2) SHADOWGRAPHY AND MECHANICAL AIDS 35
CHAPTER V. PROCESSES: (3) FREEHAND SCISSOR-WORK 47
CHAPTER VI. AUGUST EDOUART AND HIS BOOK 59
CHAPTER VII. SCRAP-BOOKS. A ROYAL CUTTER AND HER WORK 73
CHAPTER VIII. SILHOUETTE DECORATION ON PORCELAIN AND GLASS—THE
SILHOUETTE THEATRE 81
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF SILHOUETTISTS, MAKERS OF SILHOUETTE MOUNTS
AND OTHERS CONNECTED WITH THE CRAFT 87
BIBLIOGRAPHY 117
INDEX LXXIII
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Portrait of a Private in an English Regiment _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Silhouette Portraits of the Ansley Family 1
_Painted in black and orange-red on convex glass_
Silver Wedding Anniversary Picture 16
_With portraits and emblems_
Captain Robert Conig 32
_Of H.M. 90th Regiment of Infantry_
Silhouette Portraits of Members of the Ansley Family 48
_Painted in black and orange-red on convex glass_
Portrait of Lord Mansfield 64
_Painted in black and gold on glass_
Silhouette Portrait of a Man 80
_Painted in black and gold on glass_
Silhouette Portrait of a Lady 96
Painted Silhouettes 112
Illustrations in Monochrome I to LXXII
[Illustration: SILHOUETTE PORTRAITS OF THE ANSLEY FAMILY
Painted in black and orange-red on convex glass. Dated 1793. Signed by W.
Spornberg, Bath
In the possession of Lady Sackville, Knole]
PREFACE.
It has not been easy to gather up the threads of history concerning an
art and handicraft long fallen into desuetude. Amongst the few who still
work at black profile portraiture, none has been found who is cognisant
of the traditions, nor who has any knowledge of the complex processes by
means of which the fine eighteenth-century work was accomplished.
My sincere thanks are due to Mrs. Head, Mrs. Whitmore, Madame Nossof,
Mrs. Wadmore, Mrs. Lea Carson (of Philadelphia), Mrs. Whetridge, Mr.
Francis Wellesley, Mr. H. Palmer, Mr. Desmond Coke, Mr. Holworthy,
Captain Pringle, Mr. H. Terrell (of Boston), Mr. Laurence Park, Dr.
Beetham (descendant of Mrs. Beetham, the fine eighteenth-century
silhouettist), Mr. J. A. Field, for the interesting series of portraits
painted by his great-grandfather, and many others, who, possessing
silhouettes, have allowed me to visit and make a study of their
collections or have sent specimens for examination. Without their
courtesy, and that of many others who gave me facilities for studying
some thousands of specimens and advertisements, it would have been
impossible to write this book. A subject on which there exists no written
history, and which has hitherto received scant attention, requires much
research amongst a large number of examples, amongst old newspaper
matter, contemporary social history, and the trade labels of the
silhouettists, for its faithful record.
More especially I am grateful to those who have kindly permitted me to
reproduce their silhouettes, thus making clear to art lovers, and those
who take pleasure in the curio, how manifold are the charms of family
treasure, which would not otherwise have been available for study. To
Herr Julius Leisching, Director Erzerzog Rainer Museum, I am indebted
for information concerning silhouettists of Germany and Austria contained
in his memorandums of the Industrial Museum; to Sir Sidney Colvin, Keeper
of the Prints in the British Museum; to Mr. C. J. Holmes, Director of
the National Portrait Gallery; to Mr. T. Corsan Morton, of the National
Galleries of Scotland; to Mr. D. E. Roberts, of the Library of Congress,
Washington, for access to special collections; to Mr. Horace Cox and
Mr. T. P. O’Connor, with regard to pictures under their control in the
“Collector” and the Magazine; to Lady Dorothy Nevill, for placing at my
disposal the beautiful silhouette work of Princess Elizabeth, daughter of
George III.; to Lady Sackville, for allowing me to study the silhouettes
of Knole, and to reproduce some of the silhouette porcelain in her
possession.
If fresh interest is kindled in the graceful art of the silhouettist,
and the names of some little known artists are rescued from oblivion, my
pleasant task will not have been in vain. Perhaps those who read these
pages will find a charm and wistfulness in the shadow portrait. Beauty
is not alone recorded by the brush of great artists, but also by minor
workers. Gainsborough painted portraits of beautiful women at Bath, and
Charles and Spornberg worked at their shades in the same street; the
same clients visited both studios. The silhouette, poor relation of the
miniature, the forerunner of Daguerre, shows the Belle of Cheltenham,
or the Dandy of Bath and the Wells, appealing and dainty in shadowland,
while the laughter of the shadow children echoes ghost-like as we note
their toys and sports; they flit across the pages, they cast a shadow,
and are gone.
E. J.
_Oak Lodge, Sidcup._
CHAPTER I.
BLACK PROFILE PORTRAITURE: ITS PLACE IN ART, LITERATURE, AND SOCIAL LIFE.
Figures in black profile join hands round the wine-cups and oil-jars made
by Etruscan potters; in silhouette men are armed to battle, women weave
cloth and grind corn, children play at ball and knuckle-bones, life-like
in shadow.
There is a pageant of profile portraiture on the mummy cases and frescoed
tombs of ancient Egypt. Strange peoples are shown in outline as they
lived; they go to war, they marry, their children play, the ritual of
their Book of the Dead is pictured in profile three thousand years before
the Christian era.
These flat and unsubstantial ghost figures come to us down the ages.
From those mystic times when Crates of Sicyon, Philocles of Egypt,
and Cleanthes of Corinth first worked in monochrome, there is an
unbroken tale of men and women who have lived, loved, hated, and
triumphed—Pharaohs and their slaves, Greek gods, and athletes; a French
king, a murdered queen; Napoleon and his generals; statesmen and
politicians; Goëthe, Beethoven, Burns, Wellington, Dickens, Washington,
Harrison, Scott, and ten thousand others down to the present day. They
come as colourless ghosts, relics of bygone men and women, shadows caught
and held, while the realities have flitted across life’s stage and
vanished.
Old Omar Khayâm, “King of the Wise,” in the twelfth century knew
“We are no other than a moving row
Of magic shadow shapes that come and go
Round with the sun, illumined lantern held
In midnight by the master of the show.”
He had not been busied with winning knowledge without seeing the deep
significance of the shadow portrait. The familiar figure of the showman
whose lantern displays the black moving figures in the midnight streets
of Teheran appealed to him with vital force. He uses the shadow picture
constantly as a simile in his matchless quatrains—
“Heav’n but the vision of fulfilled desire,
And hell the shadow from a soul on fire,
Cast on the darkness into which ourselves
So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.”
The subtle appeal of the silhouette is inevitably associated with death,
in its legendary origin. Filled with joyous anticipation, thrilling with
the thought of the woman he would soon hold in his arms, a lover returned
after a short absence to find that his betrothed was dead; he rushed into
the death chamber, maddened with grief, to look his last on the face of
his beloved before it should be hidden from him for ever. There on the
wall the shadow of the dead woman’s features appeared in perfect outline,
for a taper at the head of the bier cast the shadow. With reverent hand
the man traced the portrait, which he believed to have been specially
sent as consolation.
There are other variants of the story. The Greek legend attributes the
invention of painting to the daughter of Dibutades. Knowing that the
passion of her lover was waning, she furtively sketched his shadow
on the wall as he stood with the sun behind him. We are not told if
this delicate way of indicating that even a shadow outline can be made
permanent by a sufficiently determined young woman was of any use in
making the love of the inconstant swain indelible.
Many artists have illustrated different phases of the basic idea as to
the shadow having first suggested portraiture. Le Brunyn, Schenan, B.
West, R.A., and Mulready are some of them.
We make no apology for studying the history of this art of the
silhouettist in its latter-day manifestations. At its best, black
profile portraiture is a thing of real beauty, almost worthy to take its
place with the best miniature painting; at its worst, it is a quaintly
appealing handicraft, revealing the fashions and foibles, the intimate
domestic life and conventions of its day. It was executed by so many
distinguished amateurs, from Etienne de Silhouette himself to Queen
Charlotte and Princess Elizabeth of England, that few social histories
or collections of letters of the eighteenth century fail to show how its
strange chequer fitted into the fashionable life of the period.
Surely it is high time the art of black profile portraiture had a
historian of its own and the great masters of silhouette portraiture were
rescued from oblivion. Shadows are impalpable things which fade away
almost before we are aware of their existence.
Year by year accident and the ravages of time lessen the number of these
fragile curios; the beautiful portraits on ivory and glass, being the
most fragile, are the first to go. Already it is not easy to find good
examples in their original frames complete with convex glass and trade
label of the artist pasted on the back. Mutilated examples with cracked
wax filling or plaster paintings, chipped and incomplete, are still to
be found; but even these have often been reframed, or have been broken
open to renew glass or back, and so the trade label has been lost. The
searcher who hopes to be successful in his quest has now to go very far
afield, unless he be satisfied with the paper pictures of indifferent
quality, interesting perhaps on account of the identity of the sitter
or the fame of the cutter, but very far from equalling in beauty the
best work of the masters in black profile portraiture. Some enthusiasts
maintain that the least artistic profile shadow portrait has a curious
individuality which redeems it from overwhelming ugliness; certainly the
infinite variety of the processes and the fresh and vigorous outlines in
unexpected media give a charm to the portrait in monochrome.
There is no sequence in the production of the different types. Some of
the earliest specimens were cut in paper, for Mrs. Pyburg is said to
have cut out the portraits of William and Mary in 1699; and certainly
some of the beauties of Versailles were cut by Gonard in paper; the
mid-Victorians worked in paper, and there are still a few cutters
busy with their scissors. Glass, ivory, and plaster, oil-painting,
smoke-staining, and Indian ink, all were used one by one or together.
There is no evolution and gradual development to trace in the art and
craft of the silhouettist; the pictures come before us like the shadows
that they are, each process appearing and disappearing. Sometimes the
same man worked in half a dozen different processes, using now one and
now another, according to the taste or purse of the sitter, or guided
by his own judgment as to the suitability of his subject for this or
that medium of expression. The miniature shades for mounting in rings,
brooches, scarf-pins, and pendants were not done exclusively by a few
men, as one might surmise from their rarity; they were painted with the
delicacy of a miniaturist by many of the silhouettists, who usually
painted silhouettes of ordinary size. These jewel shadows are now very
difficult to find, and it is probable no such collection as that of the
late Mr. Montague Guest will ever come into the market again.
Into the lives of great personages, such as Goëthe, Napoleon, our English
kings, queens, and princesses, the silhouette creeps with colourless
persistence; there is no escaping it. Goëthe writes letters to his
mother, and to Lavater, being touched with enthusiasm for the silhouette
and its uses by the zealous Zürich minister. The poet cut a few himself.
Napoleon presents glass profile portraits of himself in black on gold
tinsel ground to his generals. Princess Elizabeth, daughter of George
III., is a famous scissor-woman, and many are the pictures she cut, not
only of her father, mother, and sisters, but also of trees, birds and
flowers, rural scenes, cupids, and cupid groups.
Fanny Burney delights in the black portraits; all the Burney family are
grouped together. She records her visits to the silhouettist Charles,
when her attendance on the Queen as Maid of Honour was over. This
portrait shows the famous creator of “Evelina” to be sprightly indeed;
her delicate profile is well set off with curled and powdered hair, lace
ruffle, and beribboned hat, whose tilt must surely have been learnt at
Versailles.
Pepys lived too early to have his shadow taken. We feel sure the old
coxcomb would have had a dozen of himself, mighty fine in new clothes,
and perchance, if in generous mood, a single one of his wife in her old
ones. [My father’s profile, cut in paper, is spoken of by Bulwer Lytton
in “The Caxtons,” in the second volume.]
Horace Walpole, in his letter to Sir Horace Mann, written in 1761,
desires him to thank the Duchess of Grafton on his behalf for the
_découpure_ of herself, this being, he explains in a note, “her figure
cut out in card by M. Herbert, of Geneva, who was famous in that art.”
This allusion at this early date again indicates that the cut silhouette
was the earliest, as it certainly is the last survival, of the art. The
scissor-type, it is still called by the old inhabitants of Suffolk, who
well remember the visits of the itinerant artists.
Strange confusion has arisen in the minds of many admirers of silhouettes
on account of the name. Black profile portraiture was practised long
before Etienne de Silhouette economised in the public finance department
of Louis XV., and the wits of the day nicknamed “silhouette” whatever was
cheap and common.
In Swift’s “Miscellanies,” ed. 1745, vol. x., page 204, is a whole series
of poems (full of the most eccentric rhymes) on silhouette portraits,
_e.g._:—
“_On Dan Jackson’s Picture Cut in Paper._”
“To fair Lady Betty Dan sat for his Picture,
And defy’d her to draw him so oft as he piqu’d her.
He knew she’d no Pencil or Colouring by her,
And therefore he thought he might safely defy her.
Come sit, says my Lady, then whips out her Scissar,
And cuts out his Coxcomb in Silk in a trice, Sir.
Dan sat with Attention, and saw with Surprize
How she lengthen’d his Chin, how she hollow’d his Eyes,
But flattered himself with a secret Conceit
That his thin leathern (_sic_) Jaws all her art would defeat.
Lady Betty observ’d it, then pulls out a Pin
And varies the Grain of the Stuff to his Grin;
And to make roasted Silk to resemble his raw-bone
She rais’d up a Thread to the jett of his Jaw-bone,
Till at length in exactest Proportion he rose
From the Crown of his Head to the Arch of his Nose.
And if Lady Betty had drawn him with Wig and all,
’Tis certain the Copy’d out-done the Original.
Well, that’s but my Outside, says Dan with a Vapour;
Say you so? says my Lady; I’ve lin’d it with Paper.”
_Swift, “Miscellanies,” vol. x., p. 205._
ANOTHER.
“Clarissa draws her Scissars from the Case,
To draw the Lines of poor D—n J—n’s Face.
One sloping Cut made Forehead, Nose, and Chin,
A Nick produc’d a Mouth and made him grin,
Such as in Taylor’s measure you have seen.
But still were wanting his Grimalkin Eyes,
For which grey Worsted-Stocking Paint supplies
Th’ unravell’d Thread thro’ Needle’s Eye convey’d,
Transferr’d itself into his past-board Head.
How came the Scissars to be thus out-done?
The Needle had an Eye, and they had none.
O wond’rous Force of Art! now look at _Dan_—
You’d swear the Past-board was the better man.
The Dev’l, says he, the Head is not so full—
Indeed it is, behold the Paper Skull.”
THO. S⸺D, _Sculp_.
_Swift, “Miscellanies,” vol. x., p. 206._
ANOTHER.
“Dan’s evil Genius in a Trice
Had strip’d him of his Coin at Dice;
_Chloe_ observing this Disgrace,
On _Pam_ cut out his rueful Face.
By G⸺, says _Dan_, ’tis very hard,
Cut out at Dice, cut out at Card!”
G. R⸺D, _Sculp._
Now, Swift died in 1745, and may be said to have died to literature
some years earlier. Silhouette’s cheese-paring economy was, we are
told, induced by the deficit entailed “by the ruinous war of 1756,”
consequently it could not have been before 1760 that his name would have
become synonymous with cheapness. We thus have evidence that the art
was in use at the least twenty years before his name could have been
applied to it; and it does not at all appear that it was new then, as
Mrs. Pyburg cut William and Mary’s portrait out of black paper in 1699.
This nomenclature must, therefore, have been caused by his adoption of
it as a pastime, and not by the reason given by I. D’Israeli and the
_Dict. Hist._ This is an instance of how easily false derivations may
be published even within so short a time of the events for which they
profess to account.
A very slight study of silhouettes shows how characteristic is the pose
of many of the old black profile portraits. In the shadow of George III.,
do we not see the embodiment of Lord Rosebery’s inimitable description,
“the German Princelet of his day,” and in Pitt’s silhouette, with its
“damned long, obstinate upper lip,” as his royal master so vigorously
described it, there is the very ego of the man who was premier at
twenty-five.
Goëthe’s letters to his mother are full of allusions to the novel
portraiture which had been brought to his notice by Lavater, the Zürich
divine, whose essay on Physiognomy, written for the promotion of the
knowledge and love of mankind, is still read in Germany. The edition of
1794 is before us, and shows hundreds of silhouette drawings, for he
wrote of the importance of reading character from people’s faces, and
used the silhouette for this purpose. Thus the shadow portrait, once the
amusement of amateurs, now began to have scientific significance.
Goëthe testifies that Lavater wished all the world to co-operate with
him, and he arrived at Goëthe’s house on June 23rd, 1774, not only to
take portraits of the young genius, but also of his parents. A year later
Goëthe implores Lavater in a letter, “I beg you will destroy the family
picture of us; it is frightful. You do credit neither to yourself nor us.
Get my father’s cut out and use him as a vignette, for he is good. You
can do what you like with my head too, but my mother must not stand there
like that!”
An amusing sequel to this is that when, in the third volume of the
“Physiognomy,” the councillor’s portrait appeared, but not that of
Goëthe’s mother, she was much annoyed, and said that Lavater evidently
did not think her face worthy to appear. The matter rankled, for in
1807 she had her head examined by Dr. Gall, “to find out if the great
qualities of her son had, by any chance, been passed on to her.”
This much discussed silhouette of Goëthe’s mother is illustrated in
“Goëthe’s Mother,” by Dr. Karl Heinemann, and fuller accounts of the
poet’s attitude towards the silhouettists of his day, and the instructive
and exciting deductions from their work, will be found further on in our
volume.
In a letter from Fräulein von Göchhausen to Frau Rath—we use the
translation of Mr. A. S. Gibb—the delight in the novel portraiture is
shown, and incidentally the vivacity of the writer:—
“WEIMAR, _the 27th December, 1781_.
“I am sure, dearest mother, that you in your life have had
many and varied joys; but whether you know any such joy as
you have given me on Christmas Day, at least I wish it you!
Your silhouette, so like! of such an excellent, dear, beloved
woman! in such a costly, pretty, and stylish setting; and your
letter—O your dear letter!—could I only say how indescribably
admirable the letter is! Enough, dearest mother: from all my
exclamations there is, alas, nothing further to be learned than
that I am half out of my wits with excessive joy. The first day
Goëthe had much to bear from me, for I almost ate him up. By
monstrous good luck there was on that joyous day a grand dinner
at the Duchess’s, and nearly half the town was assembled. I
could, therefore, produce at once my splendid present (which
will not so soon come off my so-called swan-like neck); and
there was a questioning and a glancing at the beautiful
novelty, and I was thoroughly wild, and people thought I must
have had a gift of clear quicksilver.[1]
“Dearest woman, how shall I thank you! how ever deserve so
much goodness—so without all desert and worthiness on my part!
In return, I can, alas! do nothing, except to go on in my old
jog-trot—love, honour, and obey you my life long. Amen!
“L. GÖCHHAUSEN.”
[1] This seems a strange expression; but at that time, when
anyone showed a restless activity, they would say that someone
had given them quicksilver.
Later the craft of the silhouettist fell into disrepute when it had
become part of the curriculum of young ladies’ schools; unskilful artists
itinerated, pursuing their craft in booths and at fairs—one in the Thames
Tunnel, several on the Chain Pier at Brighton. At street corners magic
figures, with concealed workers, were used to entice the unwilling with
mystery. Even Sam Weller, in his inimitable letter to Mary, laughs at the
methods of the “profeel macheen.”
“So I take the privilidge of the day, Mary, my dear—as the
gen’l’m’n in difficulties did ven he valked out of a Sunday—to
tell you that the first and only time I see you your likeness
was took on my hart in much quicker time and brighter colours
than ever a likeness was took by the profeel macheen (wich
p’raps you may have heerd on, Mary, my dear), altho’ it _does_
finish a portrait and put the frame and glass on complete, with
a hook on the end to hang it up by, and all in two minutes and
a quarter.”
Such is the story, in brief, of the silhouette. Sometimes we see in
it a little social document, elevated by fortuitous circumstances or
scarcity of other pictorial record to historical value. As in the case of
Robert Burns’s portrait, by J. Miers, and that of his brother, Gilbert
Burns, by Howie, in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, at all times
it is passively charming. Surely we need not scorn this step-sister
of photography—this poor relation of the art world. In the words of
Seraphim, when, in 1771, he flung wide the doors of his Shadow Theatre at
Versailles—
“Venez garçons, venez fillettes,
Voir Momus à la silhouette;
Ou, chez Seraphim venez voir
La belle Lumeur en habit noir,
Tandes que ma salle est bien sombre
Et que mon a cleur n’est que l’ombre,
Puisse messieurs votre gaîté
Devenir la réalité.”
[Illustration]