Not only has there been much confusion in the popular mind with regard to the name of the silhouette, but also on account of the many different processes, and mixture of processes, used in their execution. Many silhouettists, as we have said, used several different ways of gaining the desired result. Mrs. Beetham, for example, painted exquisitely on ivory and plaster, with and without gold; she also cut out black paper, pasted it on card, and finished the edges with softening lines of paint on the background. This artist also painted on plaster and also on glass, so that very considerable study is required in order to judge unsigned examples.
Occasionally the whole process in silhouette cutting is reversed, and not only is a white paper portrait mounted on black, as in Mrs. Leigh Hunt’s silhouette of Byron, but the portrait is cut as a hole in a sheet of paper, and, on placing black paper, silk, or velvet at the back, the portrait outline is seen. The author owns an interesting silhouette locket in this manner, but examples are rare in England, though there are several at the Congressional Library at Washington.
Shadow portraits began to receive popular attention about 1770. At this date a picture was painted by J. C. Schenan (1740-1806), who also worked under the name of Johann Eleazar Zeisig.
The picture, which was extremely popular, was called “L’Origine de la peinture ou les portraits à la mode.” This showed a modern version of the old Greek legend. A lady, in a modish cap and deshabille, is having her shade outlined by a youth who holds a paper against the wall. This is the first hint at the movable picture which can be executed in one place and hung elsewhere; hitherto the wall or ground itself has been in place of the canvas. Two children are in the foreground, one holds up the cat while the other wields the pencil; another child makes a rabbit shadow with his fingers. Against the wall are many shadow pictures, all life-size, including one of a man, a dog, and a donkey. The dedication of the engraving of this picture runs thus: “Dediée à Son Altesse Serenissime Monseigneur le Prince Paladin du Rhin Duc regnant des Deux Ponts.”
Silver Wedding Anniversary Picture with Portraits and Emblems.
In the possession of the Author.
A century before, Frances Chauveau engraved a picture by C. le Brunyn which shows the traces of a shadow portrait on the wall. The figures are in classical dress—the woman steadies her subject with one hand while she pencils the shadow with the other. A winged love superintends the process.
The popularity of such pictures was easily accounted for. Those whose accuracy of vision and skill of hand were insufficient to achieve the fashionable freehand scissor-work, saw in this tracing method an easy way of making the black profile portraits.