Another process, which he describes as silhouette colorée, can also be done. These seem to have been more like miniatures; they cost £12, and a three-minute sitting was required. The portrait was finished on the next day but one.
Gonard’s address is given as the Palais Royal, under arch No. 166, on the side of the Rue des bons Enfants, and he describes how a lantern shall be lit each evening to facilitate the finding of his salon on dark nights. The lantern had silhouettes on it, as a sign for the footmen bringing carriages.
One cannot help imagining the scene when gay aristocrats, with powdered heads and dainty brocades, drove up to have their pictures taken in the fashionable mode, and beaux, with lace cravats and wigs, trod the floors of the studio with steps as firm as they might be three years hence when mounting the steps of the guillotine. How many of those beauties of the court of Louis XVI. were left when the terrors of the Revolution were past? How many of the pathetic little paper shadows have come down to us, fragile, indeed, but outliving the doomed originals by a century and a half?
As would be imagined, Gonard used elaborately engraved mounts to add to the grace of his portraits, and occasionally he used relief in white, grey, or colour in the execution of the portrait.
The view that the shadow portrait should remain a shadow always in black is held by one of the most prolific of all silhouettists, Edouart, whose work is fully described in the chapter on Freehand Scissor-work. In deploring the decline of the public taste for shadow portraiture, he says in his treatise on Silhouette Likenesses:—“As something was wanting to revive the expiring taste of the public for these black shades, some of the manufacturers introduced the system of bronzing the hair and dress. To what species of extravagant harlequinade this gave rise, the public is sufficiently aware. I cannot avoid making my observations concerning profile likenesses taken by patent machines, which possess sometimes all the various colours of the rainbow: for example, every day there is to be seen in the shops this kind of profile, with gold hair drawn on them, coral earrings, blue necklaces, white frills, green dress, and yellow waistband, etc. Is it not ridiculous to see such harlequinades? The face, being quite black, forms such a contrast that everyone looks like a negro! I cannot understand how persons can have so bad and, I may say, a childish taste! Very often those likenesses are brought to me to have copies made of them, and it is with the greatest trouble I am able to make them understand that it is quite unnatural; and that, taking a silhouette, which is the facsimile of a shade, it is unnecessary for its effect to bedizen it with colours.
“I would not be surprised that by-and-by those negro faces will have blue or brown eyes, rosy lips and cheeks; which, I am sure, would have a more striking appearance for those who are fond of such bigarrades.
“It must be observed that the representation of a shade can only be executed by an outline; that all that is in dress is only perceived by the outward delineation; consequently, all other inward additions produce a contrary effect of the appearance of a shade.
“Here it may be said that every one has not the same taste; some like colour which others dislike; some find ugly what others find beautiful; and, in fact, des gouts et colours on ne peut pas disputer. But every artist or real connoisseur will allow with me that when nature is to be imitated, the least deviation from it destroys what is intended to be represented.”
Edouart concludes with some severe remarks. “It is a pity that artists, in whatever line they profess, should give way to those fantastic whims, and execute works against all rules; for if they would employ their time in proper studies, and try to show the absurdity of encouraging whatever deviates from the true line of nature, they would improve themselves, and in time would derive greater benefit than in executing things which only bring scorn and ridicule from people of discernment.”