A Regency Shade

The height of this dapper gentleman’s stock and the standing collar of his waistcoat together with his ruffled à la Titus hair style help date this silhouette to the 1810s. Neatly painted on card with gum arabic highlighting, the profile has a distinctive double-loop concavity bust-line with a shadow line underneath. Although unsigned, this style was used on gentlemen by John Dixon of Bath.

The silhouette is presented in a papier-måché frame with an acorn hanger and brass corner rosettes. The reverse has a small Bath framer’s label. There is a slight watermark towards the bottom though this does not affect or detract from the profile.

Little is known of John Dixon’s background, the earliest record of him being an advert in the Cheltenham Chronicle (24 August 1809) offering miniature and cameo painting. Although not prolific in his output, he is best known as a minor artist of portrait miniatures. Indeed Directory listings place him in Bath from around 1812 as a miniature painter or a teacher of miniature painting. Silhouette painting was apparently a minor sideline perhaps reserved to capture likenesses of friends and family. The 1841 Census shows Dixon living at 14 Pulteney Bridge in Bath with his wife Elizabeth, a furrier. He died the following September and was buried at Walcot Methodist Chapel; Elizabeth died in 1846.