Wigs on the Green - Portrait Miniatures, Silhouettes & Portraits

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Item Ref. 3614

HUBARD GALLERY, active 1822 - circa 1845

This is a bust-length silhouette of a gentleman in a broad-collared coat and a deep stock right up to his chin.

The silhouette is cut and neatly bronzed. There is a Hubard Gallery stencil stamp on the bottom edge. It is set in a handsome bird's eye maple frame with a gilt slip.

Framed size: 7½ x 6½" (190 x 167mm)

Price: £160

The Hubard Gallery was set up in 1822 by a businessman seeking to exploit the precocious talents of the child artist, William James Hubard who passed the time in Chapel by cutting silhouettes of the congregation. The Gallery was successful and in order to keep up with demand several artists with individual styles and differing abilities were employed. They toured extensively around the British Isles and the United States. Hubard himself eventually left the Gallery to work on his own travelling in Europe and the US. When the Civil War broke out he began experimenting with gunpowder but it was an interest that was to kill him when a bomb exploded at his foundry.

Item Ref. 3715

ENGLISH SCHOOL, circa 1810-20

This is a full-colour profile portrait of a gentleman named on the reverse as the Rev. John Bull. He has a well-receding hairline but makes up for it with bushy eyebrows and side-whiskers. He is wearing a black coat with a deep collar and a white knotted stock.

The portrait is watercolour on card. It is set in the original papier-mâché frame with an emblems (rose, thistle, shamrock) hanger.

Framed size: 5 x 43/8" (128 x 110mm)

Price: £150

Item Ref. 3130

ENGLISH SCHOOL, circa 1770-80

This is a well-painted and detailed ¾-length silhouette of a lady painted using black and thinned black watercolour. The lady is holding a fan and is wearing an outdoor dress, probably riding attire, with a full skirt and a tight buttoned bodice puffed out in front with a buffon. The full-length sleeves are buttoned on the wrist and edged with a frill. Under her voluminous waisted hat, her hair is arranged in a ‘banging chignon’ with stiff curls and a thick loop of hair which would have swung from side to side as the lady walked.

The silhouette is housed in a traditional papier-mâché frame with a bunch of grapes hanger and is backed with an unrecorded trade label which curiously does not divulge the name of the talented artist. The label has darkened with age and is rubbed in places but the text is still mostly legible. It uses the old style s which looks similar to f but without a complete cross-bar. (This fell out of fashion with printers rather suddenly in about 1780.)

THE NOBILITY and GENTRY desirous of preserving the most striking likeness [for] their ancestors or posterity, are respectfully informed, they may be accommodated with elegant and fashionable PROFILE SHADES, FOR FIVE SHILLINGS each, at No. 33, ---NGTON ROAD. N.B. No gratuity required, if not -----edly a perfect resemblance. Ladies and Gentlemen (not less than four in number) sending their commands as above, may be [wai]ted at their respective houses, without any additional expence.

Framed size: 5¾ x 4¾" (147 x 122mm)

Price: £400

Item Ref. 3621

EDWARD FOSTER, 1762-1865

This is a silhouette portrait of an unknown lady wearing a day dress with a columnar neck culminating in a single ruff under her chin. She also has a fashionable turban which conceals all but a few curls of her hair.

This is one of Foster's early 'black profiles' where the costume details have been carefully outlined using gum arabic. It dates to around 1814 and is set in a papier-mâché frame with a decorative surround and a bunch of grapes hanger.

Provenance: Ex. Sue McKechnie collection
Literature: British Silhouette Artists and their Work 1760-1860, page 147, illus. 198
Framed size: 55/8 x 43/4" (144 x 121mm)

Price: £250

The son of a gentleman land-steward, Edward Foster joined the Derbyshire militia at an early age. Over the next 25 years he saw active service during the War of American Independence and then in Holland and Egypt. A few years after retiring from the army, Foster forged a new career in painting with early success that included Royal patronage which earned him his own apartment at Windsor Castle. By the 1820s he had returned home to Derby where he continued to run a successful portrait studio only retiring officially upon his 100th birthday. He was 102 years old when he died having been married five times with 17 children, only the youngest of whom outlived him.

Item Ref. 3700

ENGLISH SCHOOL, circa 1825

This charming double silhouette is of two young ladies facing each other, possibly sisters or perhaps a mother with her young daughter. The taller lady is wearing a décolleté dress with a pinched-in waistline; her hair isdrawn back into a know with ringlets arranged round her face. The younger lady is wearing a more modest dress with wide sleeves gathered into a tight cuff.

The profiles are cut and lightly bronzed. They are set in a period Hogarth frame and are in fine condition.

Framed size: 12½ x 9½" (326 x 243mm)

Price: £240

Item Ref. 2996

ENGLISH SCHOOL, circa 1830

A lovely bust-length silhouette portrait of a young girl in a wide-shouldered dress with wide sleeves decorated with a shoulder bow. Her hair is arranged in ringlets and she wears a beaded necklace and a fashionable narrow gold band or ferronière low over her forehead.

The profile is cut-out and finely gilded. It is housed in a traditional papier-mâché with an acorn hanger. Excellent condition.

Framed size: 51/2 x 41/2" (140 x 115mm)

Price: £160

Item Ref. 3574

ENGLISH SCHOOL, circa 1810

This is a graceful silhouette portrait of a Regency lady wearing an elegant high-waisted dress with a very tall neck-line edged with fine lace. Golden curls peep out from under her fashionable turban-style hat which is trimmed with ribbon.

The profile is painted on card and is extensively gilded. It resides in a traditional papier-mâché frame with brass surround and elongated acorn hanger.

Framed size: 51/4 x 41/4" (133 x 106mm)

S O L D !

Item Ref. 2394

ENGLISH SCHOOL, circa 1830

This attractive silhouette portrait is painted with a touch of colour and portrays a young lady wearing a dress with full, possibly 'leg of mutton' sleeves and a coral beaded necklace. Her hair is swept up into an Apollo knot and secured with a large comb.

The silhouette is painted in dark grey watercolour with gold paint used to accentuate the hair. It is set in a handsome period bird's eye maple frame.

Framed size: 77/8 x 71/2" (185 x 140mm)

Price: £165

W & H Walter silhouette artist's trade label

Item Ref. 3163

H. & J. WALTER, circa 1850

This is a half-length silhouette of a lady wearing a dress with a pleated bodice and a pointed waist-line together with a white bonnet trimmed with lace rosettes.

The profile is cut from dove-grey paper, the detail is highlighted with gold & Chinese white. The artist’s trade stencil is on the reverse and it is housed in a fine rosewood frame with a gilt slip.

Framed size: 7 x 53/4" (176 x 145mm)
Provenance: Sue McKechnie collection
Literature: Sue McKechnie, British Silhouette Artists and their Work 1760-1860 - page 346,
plate 617

Price: £195

H. & J. Walter were active between about 1848 and 1853 and are known from just a handful of examples of their work.

Item Ref. 3353

PROSOPOGRAPHUS, the AUTOMATON ARTIST, 1829

This is a finely painted silhouette portrait of an elegant lady, named on the reverse as Mrs Thring. Her hair is drawn up into a knot and secured with a large comb with soft curls around her forehead. The profile is inscribed on the obverse: ‘done by an Automaton 1829’.

Housed in a giltwood frame with attractive hand-stencilled decoration.

Framed size: 6½ x 5" (164 x 128mm)

Price: £180

Given the date and the fact that the bust-line closely matches that on a labelled Prosopographus profile in the Willcocks collection, it seems certain that the Automaton was indeed that mechanical device invented by Charles Hervé II for drawing the outline of silhouettes. He named his device ‘Prosopographus, the Automaton Artist’ and exhibited it around England as a great curiosity. A contemporary handbill claimed that it could ‘produce more perfect resemblances than any living artist [could] possibly execute’.

Item Ref. 2908

WILLIAM ALPORT, circa 1810

A bust-length silhouette portrait of an elegant Regency lady with upswept hair arranged in a knot with a decorative comb.

The profile is painted with fine brushwork to indicate the outline of the hair. The plunging base-line has Alport's characteristically neat finish. It is housed in a traditional papier-mâché frame with a star hanger.
Excellent condition.

Framed size: 51/4 x 41/2" (133 x 114mm)

Price: £165

William Alport worked as a profilist from a booth inside William Bullock's private Museum of National History and Antiquities in Liverpool, with the aid of Bullock's physiognotrace, an invention that was first advertised in 1806. Bullock moved his museum to London in 1810 but Alport remained in Liverpool working under his own name until at least 1829. He died in 1831.

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Cynthia McKinley
Wigs on the Green Fine Art, York
Tel. +44 (0)1904 794711 Mobile: 07962 257915
Email: enquiries@wigsonthegreen.co.uk