A Liverpudlian

Surprisingly little is known about Mr Harrison, a hitherto unrecorded itinerant silhouette artist. Advertising in the Chester Courier (July 1809 & August 1812) he presented himself as a Portrait and Miniature Painter also offering Shades taken at one minutes sitting for 5s. Harrison used a Portable Prosopographus, a device which somehow captured a life-size profile that could then be reduced. He may have acquired this device from Edward Foster, a prolific silhouette artist who claimed to have invented the device and who spent time working in the north west. Mr Harrison was still working in 1822 when he advertised (Norfolk Chronicle) that in addition to profile likenesses ‘equal to the miniatures’ he was taking black shades for the much reduced price of just 1s.

Painted on card in black and shades of grey, the profile shows an old-fashioned gentleman in a pigtail wig. Few gentleman were wearing wigs by this time because of the Duty on Hair Powder Act of 1795 which introduced an annual tax of one guinea. Those who paid up to continue wearing their powdered wigs were dubbed ‘guinea pigs’.

The silhouette is fully signed on the reverse ‘Drawn by J. Harrison / in One Minute by /his Improv’d Portable Prosophograph / Liverpool 1811’. The silhouette is presented in a gilded turned wood frame with a later hinged hanger.