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The Story
of the Silhouette
of the Silhouette
Amongst the best known artists in England was John Miers (1756-1821), who began his career in Liverpool before opening a London studio at
No. 111 the Strand in 1788. His standard fee was a guinea and he worked on ivory, with many of his works being made into jewelry. W. Phelps was also working from his studio in Drury Lane, where he painted his work onto plaster or buff coloured paper, adding pastel paints to items of clothing. William Hamlet, who was appointed profilist to Queen Charlotte and the Royal Family, had several studios in Bath from 1780 to 1815 and painted his silhouettes on flat or convex glass.
No. 111 the Strand in 1788. His standard fee was a guinea and he worked on ivory, with many of his works being made into jewelry. W. Phelps was also working from his studio in Drury Lane, where he painted his work onto plaster or buff coloured paper, adding pastel paints to items of clothing. William Hamlet, who was appointed profilist to Queen Charlotte and the Royal Family, had several studios in Bath from 1780 to 1815 and painted his silhouettes on flat or convex glass.
Etienne de Silhouette (1709-1769), a French Minister of Finance who cut black profiles as a hobby, is credited with leanding his name to the silhouette medium. Such artists were originally called "profile miniaturists" and their work called "profile miniatures" or "shades." From about 1790 on, silhouettes provided likenesses of family members at a cost much lower than that of painted miniatures. Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King George III, was a skilled amateur silhouettist. These artists cut the amazingly accurate profile of a subject in just a few minutes, with some artists adding gold accents and coloured paints to give their work more visual interest. The typical cost of a silhouette ranged from a shilling to a guinea or more. Before long, every town of any size, and especially resort and spa towns, had at least one resident silhouettist.
A decline in the quality of silhouettes began in the 1820's, when unskilled persons took up the lucrative trade. Later, commercial photography began to threaten the medium. In 1854, Parisian Andre Disderi patented a multi-lensed camera producing eight small likenesses upon one large glass negative. The contact print was cut, the portraits trimmed and then mounted on cards two and a half by four inches in size. As this was the usual size for a visiting card, the new photos were called "cartes de visite." The new craze reached England in 1861, when J.E. Mayall took carte de visite portraits of the Royal Family. Soon, photographers studios opened in every town, with prices ranging from a guinea for a dozen prints in London to half a guinea in provincial towns.
In 1861, 168 portrait studios existed in London, with 27 in Regent Street alone. By 1866, the number of London photographers had reached 284. Disderi himself opened two studios in London, one in Brooke Street, off Hanover Square, the other in Hedeford Lodge, Old Brompton. During the 1860's, Horatio Nelson King, a photographer in Bath, reportedly sold between sixty and seventy thousand cards in a single year!