A Brief History - The Silhouette and Silhouettist or shadow paintings.

The origins of silhouette go back to Classical antiquity, and there is evidence of its emergence at the end of the Seventeenth century as an art form in Europe, but its heyday was through to be the Eighteenth century and into the early years of the nineteenth century. The publication of Johanna Casper Lavater's Essays on Physiognomy in the 1770s possibly did much to stimulate interest in silhouette, since the book was illustrated with this type of portrait. After this publication, silhouettes became fashionable with admirers as diverse as the writer Johanna Von Goth (who was himself a cutter), the Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, and King George III of England. In fact there is a famous painting of Princess Elizabeth, third daughter of George III, sitting by a window at Windsor Castle, engaged in her favorite hobby - cutting silhouettes. Silhouette took its name from the French Minister of Finance, Etienne de Silhouette (1709-1767). It was his hobby to cut profiles from black paper. A silhouette is an outline of an object against the light, commonly a profile portrait in black. The term usually refers to the side view of the head. The earliest silhouettes were possibly cut from black paper with scissors, but the art is thought to have achieved its greatest heights with the painted silhouette, and these became the finest miniatures. Original portraits were life size. The subject sat between a candle lamp and a glass screen, behind which was a sheet of oiled paper. The artist, working on the other side, drew around the life-size shadow on the paper. The outline was blacked in later, or cut out and backed with black material. This was called `hollow cutting. In 1775 Mrs. Samuel Harrington invented the pantograph - a mechanical device for enlarging or reducing drawings This device meant that the artist could produce a copy of the original silhouette at any time. By the late 1700s it was advertised by one artist that he could produce `16 different sizes down to 0.6 cm. These minute silhouettes were, no doubt, set in jewellery, since silhouettes of this size were painted on ivory and often used this way. One of the greatest Silhouettist was considered to be John Miers (1758-1821); Isabella Beetham (fl.1750), who painted on the reverse side of glass, is thought to be at least his equal. `Verre eglomise', the technique of painting on the back of glass using paint with gold and silver foils was also used. At the end of the eighteenth century, silhouette went into a decline from which it was rescued by the efforts of French refugee, Augustin Amant Constant Fidele Edouart (1789- 1861). This artist cut around 3800 silhouettes.   

Credit to: Patricia Moy The Complete Guide to Miniature Painting.