AUGUST EDOUART AND HIS BOOK.
The introduction of the name Silhouette into England seems to have been
due to August Edouart, a Frenchman, who, though only commencing the black
portrait cutting after leaving his own country, used the French word for
his craft instead of the black shade, which had hitherto been the name in
England for such profile portraits.
“How many times,” writes Edouart, in the chapter in his treatise which
he naïvely calls “The Grievances and Miseries of Artists,” “have I had
people who, immediately after entering my room, departed, exclaiming,
‘Oh! they are all black shades,’ and would not stop to inspect them.”
“The name silhouette, which appeared in the newspaper advertisements,
seems to have given them to understand that it was a new kind of likeness
done in colours, each of which (full-length figure) they expected to get
for five shillings.”
Again, on another page, he exclaims, “Why does such prejudice exist
against black shades, which I call silhouette likenesses?” Certainly
none of the early shadow portrait painters on paper, glass, or plaster
ever used this name, taken from the French Finance Minister. It was not
used in England until after the commencement of Edouart’s work and the
publication of his book. By this time, it must be remembered, black
profile portraiture had deteriorated in beauty, and the artists who
frequented fairs and places of amusement were less skilled, indeed, than
the Miers, Fields, Beethams, and Rosenbergs of the eighteenth century.
“Obliged to quit my country in consequence of a change in its
Government,” Edouart, the most prolific and important of all the
scissor-men, describes himself as “thrown upon foreign ground, without
friends and without knowledge of the language. I had then very little
money left, for I had lost all I possessed in the evacuation of Holland
in 1813. A few months after my arrival in England, I found myself, after
payment of all my travelling expenses, in possession of no more than a
five-pound note, which I immediately expended in advertising myself as a
French teacher.”
Succeeding in this at first, the arrival of so many other Frenchmen after
a time reduced his work, and Edouart sought other means of livelihood. He
began to make devices, landscapes, etc., with human hair, though what led
him to this quaint handicraft, or what previous training he had in it, we
have not been able to discover.
After receiving the patronage of Her Royal Highness the late Duchess of
York, and making the portraits of some of her dogs with the animals’ own
hair, he worked for the Queen and Princess Charlotte. Edouart, whose
industry seems always to have been remarkable, executed over fifty of
these strange hair portraits, and held an exhibition, the catalogue of
which lies before us.
In 1825, Madame Edouart died, and August was persuaded to try his hand
at likeness cutting in order to better the performance of some machine
artist, whose work he had condemned. Finding, much to his surprise,
that he was able to produce likenesses with extraordinary facility and
exactness, he was persuaded by his friends to employ his time in this
way, “so as to divert the gloom from my sinking mind, and alleviate
my sorrows.” It seems probable also that his new talent was useful in
filling his much depleted purse.
After many expressions of reluctance that he, August Edouart, should be
cut by society and become a black profile taker, he decided to make
an art of what had been so long considered a mere mechanical process,
for Edouart never seems to have heard of black painted profiles and the
exquisite work of the early profile painters, but only the machine-made
pictures by the itinerant workers.
The first full-length that Edouart took was of the Bishop of Bangor,
Dr. Magendie. “I succeeded so well,” he says in his introduction, “that
I took all his lordship’s family; and so pleased were they that I made
forty duplicates. This _début_, being so far above my expectation,
encouraged me to continue, and from that time, being much engaged by the
first visitors of Cheltenham, I took a resolution to keep a copy of every
one to form a collection.”
“This talent,” he continues, “showed itself so strongly, and I was so
anxious, that I worked from morning till night, and even in my dreams my
brain was so much overheated by that anxiety, that in those dreams I was
cutting likenesses of great personages, kings, queens, etc.”
His method of holding the scissors was unusual. The reason for this
peculiarity is thus described: “One day, when crossing a stile, a lady
tore her dress by a nail which was put on the step mischievously. To
prevent the recurrence, I took a stone to take the nail away: in the
act of doing so my index finger was lacerated in such a manner that I
could not use my scissors. I suffered a great deal for several days, and
my mind being so much excited about it, I dreamt that I cut likenesses
without using the index finger. I was so much struck by this that, as
soon as I awoke, I took my scissors and have ever since used them in that
manner.” In an old daguerrotype he is seen cutting a portrait in this
manner.
In his treatise Edouart gives no detailed account of his journeys, though
he notes that he has always kept a diary.
From newspaper advertisements we learn that he was in Cheltenham in June,
1829, where he is described in the _Cheltenham Journal_ as assisting in
Lavater’s system with regard to Physiognomy. At this stage the old idea
that silhouette portraits must have a scientific use still clung to the
craft.
In 1830 Edouart is in Edinburgh. In the _Scotsman_ of February 13th
the collection of ingenious works executed by Monsieur Edouart is
mentioned. “This may be seen gratuitously at 72, Princes Street. Mr.
Edouart makes silhouette likenesses, not only of the profile, but also
of the whole person, by cutting them by the hand, out of black paper.”
The account ends thus: “In his rooms the curious will find amusement
and the philosophic employment.” The cannie Scotsman would attract the
“unco’ guid” with learning and occupation as well as the frivolous with
amusement.
On May 8th of the same year the _Edinburgh Evening Courant_ takes
notice of Edouart’s success in his likenesses of Sir Walter Scott (this
portrait of Scott was recently purchased by the Director of the National
Portrait Gallery, on account of its fine technique and the human and
life-like attitude of the great novelist), the Dean of Faculty, and other
distinguished characters of the city, and slyly regrets that Edouart
departs so soon.
The clever hint at departure evidently had the desired effect, for in
the following February, 1831, Edouart is still at Edinburgh, “his rooms
thronged with visitors since his threatened departure. Six hundred
likenesses in a fortnight, and declining to take new ones till the orders
given by the first families are executed.” Five thousand duplicates are
now on view, and his books are exhibited at Holyrood Palace, where they
are much approved of by the Royal Family.
It was at the end of 1830 that Charles X., ex-king of France, and
suite, arrived at Holyrood, and though Edouart acknowledges “a feeling
of ill-will towards the Bourbon family is still lingering in my bosom,
remembering—as I did—the losses I suffered in consequence of their
restoration to the throne of France,” he attended, when requested in
person by the Duchesse de Berri. He found “His Majesty pacing up and
down, and the Duchesse presented me, reminding the King that I was a
Frenchman. He seemed pleased and affable.”
The whole Royal Family, attended by the suite, nearly forty in number,
formed a circle, in the centre of which Edouart cut his first paper
portrait of Charles X. “By mistake,” he says, “I took paper of four
folds, in place of one of two, and, as I had begun, so I cut out the
likeness. As soon as I had finished it the little Prince (the Duke of
Bordeaux) took one, Mademoiselle, his sister, took another, the Duchesse
de Berri another.”
Edouart cut the likenesses that evening of the Duke d’Angoulême, the
Duchesse d’Angoulême, the Duchesse de Berri, Mademoiselle Louise Marie,
the Duke de Bordeaux, the Cardinal de Latil, and many of the suite. After
this Edouart declares that he “was a daily visitor at Holyrood, and my
exhibition was often honoured by Royalty.” The Duke de Bordeaux declared
that if Edouart would become one of his suite, he should be called the
Black Knight.
Two of the Holyrood portraits by Edouart were exhibited at the Amateur
Art Society’s Exhibition in 1902, by Miss Head. They were thus described
in the Catalogue:—
“119. Duchesse de Berri and her children (Henry V. and the Duchesse de
Parma) at Holyrood, by Edouart.”
“120. Henry V. and the Duchesse de Parma as children at Holyrood.”
In the recently discovered folios which belonged to Edouart himself,
and which serve as an invaluable record of the entourage of Charles X.
at Holyrood, very many of these likenesses appear; most of them have the
original autograph of the sitter. From the wonderfully interesting groups
of shadows we see the _vie intime_ of the exiled king. He is surrounded
by his children, his chamberlains and equerries, intimate friends,
physicians (for body and soul). Even L’Abbé Focart, Confesseur du Roi,
figures amongst them; and visitors to Holyrood, such as the Baron de Size
and the Baron de Sepmanville, are included; besides the dogs and horses,
the ponies of the children, and the toys and playthings with which they
amused themselves in those days of exile.
Even when such success rewarded the efforts of Edouart, he is still in
apologetic mood with regard to his art, and declares that if his work had
not been good the French Royal Family would not have encouraged it. “They
had seen a great quantity of those common (machine-made) black shades in
Paris, and had also a great dislike to them, which was soon removed when
they saw the nature of mine.” He is never able to refrain from a sneer at
the other silhouettists.
In December, 1831, the _Glasgow Free Press_ declares that “Monsieur E.’s
rooms need only to be known to become a fashionable resort for lovers
of the fine arts.” The hair models seem to have formed part of the
exhibition.
In October, 1832, Edouart is still in Glasgow, and his likenesses now
number 45,000, including the Orphan Asylum and all its managers, the
directors of the Commercial Bank, and several others. In London he took
800 members of the Stock Exchange, of which he sold several books.
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF LORD MANSFIELD
Painted on glass by A. Forberger, Paris]
Edouart seems to have moved on to Dublin in 1833, but we doubt if he was
pleased when the _Dublin Evening Mail_ of July 24th describes him as “the
most _comical_ and at the same time the cleverest artist from Paris.
His art gives the scissors all the expressive powers of the pencil, and
extracts from a single tint of black the miraculous effects of a whole
rainbow of colours.”
Edouart is by now cutting out genre pictures, and subjects from “Æsop’s
Fables” are mentioned, while the portraits increase rapidly in number,
6,000 being taken in Dublin alone. The Archbishop of Dublin and a great
number of clergy and the officers of the garrison head the list. In his
exhibition he shows, amongst thousands of others, His Royal Highness the
late Duke of York, the Duke of Gloucester, and the Duke of Wellington;
the Bishops of Norwich, Bangor, St. Davids, and Bristol; Doctors Chalmers
and Gordon; Edward Irving, Charles Simeon, Rowland Hill, Joseph Wolfe,
Jabez Bunting, Sir Walter Scott, Mrs. Hannah More, Mrs. Opie (herself a
silhouettist), Kean, Liston, Power, Sir Astley Cooper, Baron Rothschild,
etc.
In August, 1834, Edouart went to Cork. Later he visited Kinsale, Fermoy,
Mallow, Limerick, and many other places. Paganini’s portrait was taken at
Edinburgh in October, 1832, where Edouart went, travelling from Glasgow
on purpose to obtain it. Signor Paganini declared it was the first
likeness of himself which was not caricatured. This full-length portrait
shows the maestro standing, violin in hand, just ready to begin. In the
background are lithograph portraits of the members of an orchestra: they
are seated in a domed music-room.
It was in 1835 that Edouart’s book was published. We presume it had
been written during the time of his prodigious activities in silhouette
cutting while he moved from place to place and conducted his exhibition.
It is a thin demy octavo volume of 122 pages, now extremely rare.
The copy in the possession of the author was presented to Miss C. J.
Hutchings by Edouart at Cheltenham, August 25th, 1836. There are
eighteen full-page plates, showing black portraits or fancy figures
mounted on lithograph backgrounds, by Unkles & Klasen, 26, South Mall,
Cork. In the original volumes of duplicates kept by Edouart many of these
mounts were found, as the silhouettist doubtless kept a number by him
ready for mounting his portraits.
In a chapter headed “The Vexations and Slights my Profession has brought
upon me,” Edouart deplores “the vulgarity into which silhouettes have
fallen, so that I could not walk in public with a lady on my arm without
hearing such remarks as this, ‘Who can she be—that lady with the black
shade man?’ The same disposition to cast odium on me was displayed
whenever I was seen walking arm-in-arm with friends who moved in circles
of high life. It went so far that, being in the habit of walking at the
Wells of Cheltenham, and accustomed to go to the balls at the Rotunda,
I was forced to deprive myself of the pleasure of being with my friends
in these places. On different occasions several persons of high rank in
society accused me of being somewhat proud,” and so on through many pages.
On one occasion his greeting was of the most cordial description, owing
to an amusing mistake. “A friend having given a recommendatory letter to
a particular friend in town, I was received in a better manner than ever
I was received since I began taking black shades. As my friend would not
recommend me to a suitable lodging, we went to the editor of a newspaper,
to whom he spoke, and then presented me to him. Upon this we all went
to the governor of the castle, who had a house to let in the town. The
governor willingly consented to let me have the house, though he feared
the boards might not be strong enough for the exercise of my profession,
and the quantity of people it would be likely to attract; indeed, it
would be advisable to practise on the ground floor, that the noise and
bustle would not be so great, and the like....
“The governor, who had been a military man, asked me very good-humouredly
if it were not trespassing on my goodness to allow him to take a round
with me, saying that he had taken lessons, and took off his coat. I
declared that I had not brought my tools with me.” The scene is described
in several pages, and shows how the governor offers eventually to lend
gloves, when it dawns upon the _profilist_ that the letter has been
misread, and the sports around him imagine he is a _pugilist_.
Edouart seems to have suffered much at the hands of his sitters.
“But, Monsieur Edouart,” says one of these, “you have taken John, who is
a head taller than his brother William, a great deal smaller. How can
that be? It is a mistake of yours; you must correct that.”
“You must know, madam,” replies the silhouettist, “that it is according
to the rule of perspective. Do you not see that John is at least six
yards farther in the background than his brother?”
“Yes! but his is cut smaller,” persists the aggrieved parent.
Gentlemen demanding ladies’ profiles were refused by this veritable Mrs.
Grundy of silhouettists. His refusal is given in language worthy of the
Fairchild family.
“Ladies are never exhibited, nor duplicates of their likenesses either
sold or delivered to anyone but themselves or by their special order.
This resolution I have taken, and I follow it very strictly, being
fully aware of the consequence that would result if this measure was
not adopted. Gentlemen presume that they are entitled to possess the
likenesses of any ladies they like. But no—no—they cannot deceive me by
false pretences. I am too much upon my guard to be surprised. The books
in which I keep duplicates are all defended with a patent lock.”
Monsieur Edouart rivals the serpent in wiliness when a lady’s portrait is
so desired and the gentleman offers the address where it should be sent.
The artist says, “I do not require to know your direction, gentlemen.
I know that of the lady, to whom I shall send it, and she herself will
deliver it to you.” We should imagine that, under those conditions,
orders were usually cancelled.
“Some make themselves pass for relations,” adds Edouart, who is not
without a sense of humour, though he does take himself so seriously, “as
a brother, cousin, uncle, etc., but all this is in vain.”
Edouart seems to have used special means of his own to extract payment
of debts, and his illustration “The Screw” shows in what manner his
clients were brought to book. The episode is described at great length
in his book, but unfortunately the name of the sitter for “The Screw”
is withheld. Briefly, a young man had his portrait cut, approved of
the likeness, but regretted, after seeing a picture of a friend in a
dress-coat, that he had not also worn that kind. In a very rude manner
he said he would not pay for the completed likeness until another was
done in a dress-coat. Edouart said he must be paid for both. This the man
refused, so the artist refused to cut the second picture and was left
with the portrait on his hands. To cut the screw and add the ring and
hook was the work of a few moments, and the picture was then exhibited
in a conspicuous position in the window, where everyone recognised it.
“Since that time, I have not had occasion to make a screw,” adds Edouart,
naïvely.
The subject of caricature in silhouette is a very interesting one, but
cannot be fully treated here. There are few examples, and it is strange
that so virile and graphic an art as that of the silhouette should show
so few specimens of caricature work.
In August Edouart’s work just such aptitude for seizing the salient
feature in face or figure is invariably shown which is the quality most
required by the caricaturist, but Edouart never allows his scissors to
swerve from faithful and exact portrayal; no note of exaggeration is seen
even when executing the fine studies, such as his beggar and itinerant
groups in the streets of Bath or Cheltenham.
In the figure of George Cary, porter at Price’s auction rooms, Bath,
taken April 4th, 1827, there is no exaggeration. The man appears
balancing two fine candlesticks on a small tray; the unerring likeness
is self-evident. It is the same with the blind gingerbread-seller of Gay
Street; the bill-sticker who is about to paste up one of Edouart’s own
labels; John Hulbert, the old scavenger; and with several of the no less
clever street characters of Bath. In these we see consummate skill in
depicting the man or woman in life as they were, but with no sense of
bias towards caricature.
Amongst the old letters recently discovered with the precious folios of
Edouart’s duplicates is one from “S. H.,” dated Birmingham, June 1st,
1838:—
“MY DEAR FRIEND,—On seeing your Exhibition, I was astonished at the
application you must have bestowed on an art I had till then considered
as useless. I found likenesses of unrivalled talent, not only accurate
outlines, but giving the character of those whom they represented. Write
to me from America. The Americans are known to encourage talent of every
description, and I hope to see you return laden with the produce of your
labours in that fresh and interesting country to the place you are now
quitting.”
For how long Edouart had been contemplating his American tour we are not
aware. In the year 1839 he was in Liverpool, working at his profession.
In the same year he sailed for the United States, taking with him his
volumes of English, Scotch, and Irish portraits for exhibition purposes.
He seems to have met with immediate success, and the volumes which
contain his American portraits give so complete a pictorial record of the
social and political history of the time (1839-1849) as probably no other
nation possesses. During his first year three hundred and eighty-one
portraits were taken in New York, Saratoga, Boston, and Philadelphia,
amongst them being Mr. Belmont, who is entered as “August Belmont, Agent
of the House of Rothschild, New York.” There are two portraits, 8½ inches
in height, of this man, who was an important social and financial figure
of the day, and founder of the Jockey Club of New York; congress-men,
editors, journalists, and officers of the Army and Navy in uniform.
The wives and children of these interesting men are also included in
the collection, and later, when he visited New Orleans and other States
where slavery was permitted, we find occasionally a slave’s picture
“belonging” to the family. As in his English collections, the names of
his sitters, the date, and name of place where taken, and sometimes
curious details such as height and weight, are all entered, not only
beneath each portrait in the folio, but also at the back of the portrait
itself; and also in his list-books newspaper cuttings are sometimes
added. In 1840 five hundred and thirty-one portraits were taken in the
same places, in Washington and Saratoga Springs. Major-General Winfield
Scott (Commander-in-Chief) is amongst them.
The year 1841 was the time of the great Log Cabin election, and Harrison,
the hero, is shown with two autographs in Edouart’s books, besides
his whole Cabinet and the orators, demagogues, place-hunters, and
abolitionists, who all seem to have visited the studio of the artist,
whatever their political opinions. Seven hundred and sixty-five portraits
were taken in this year at Washington and elsewhere.
After the tragic death of Harrison, John Tyler, the only man who was
President without election, was taken by Edouart, and it gave the
author great pleasure to present to the American nation his autographed
silhouette. It was taken at the White House in 1841, and was returned
there through Mr. Taft in June, 1911, after seventy years’ wandering.
When arranging the presentation, His Excellency, James Bryce, our
Ambassador in Washington, was much interested, because Edouart had
visited his old home in the north of Ireland and cut the portraits of his
father and grandfather, which are still preserved there, and are fine
likenesses.
In 1842 Edouart travelled further afield, and made six hundred and
forty-one pictures in New Orleans and other States he had not yet
visited; in Cambridge he cut Longfellow, the Appleton family, the
President of Harvard, and dozens of professors and students of the
College.
In 1843 four hundred and sixty of the citizens of Philadelphia, New York,
Saratoga Springs, Norwich (Conn.), Charlestown, and other towns too
numerous to mention, were taken, named, dated, and placed in his folios.
There are an interesting crowd of congress-men, senators, financial
celebrities, actors, musicians, editors, men of science, and the
members of the Army and Navy, mostly in uniform, including Macomb, then
Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Army.
In 1844 five hundred and eighty-nine portraits are extant from a dozen
different cities, and then we come down to eight pictures taken in 1845,
four only in 1846, and four only in the next three years.
The reason for this falling off in numbers is so extraordinary that we
give it in continuing Edouart’s life-story. It is probable that the
artist was just as industrious during the last five years of his tour in
America as he had been in the first four, but his work is destroyed.
In December, 1849, he packed all his folios in great cases, and set out
for home, sailing in the ship “Oneida,” laden with bales of Maryland
cotton. When off the coast of Guernsey she was caught in a great gale,
and was wrecked in Vazon Bay on December 21st. The crew and passengers
were saved and some of the baggage; a case, containing fourteen of the
precious folios, some old letters and list-books, was saved; all the rest
was lost, with much of the cargo, when the ship broke up two days after
she had gone on the rocks.
Edouart suffered much from exposure, for he was then an old man, and
the loss of the greater part of his life’s work so preyed upon his mind
that he never again practised his profession. The Lukis family, resident
at Guernsey, hospitably entertained the old artist, and he gave his
remaining volumes, fourteen in number, containing his European collection
and his American portraits, to Frederica Lukis before he left for Guines,
near Calais, where he died in 1861, in his seventy-third year.
The writer was fortunately enabled to secure these volumes through the
medium of _The Connoisseur Magazine_, and has included illustrations from
them in the present work.