Feathers & Tassels

This splendid profile shows a formidable-looking lady in a dress with a puffed-out buffon tied with a tasseled ribbon and an eye-catching Gainsborough style hat trimmed with tassels and ostrich feathers. Her hair is worn in a banging chignon, the loop secured with a ribbon bow.

Finely painted on plaster, the silhouette is presented with an ebonised border in a hammered brass-faced frame and is backed with the artist’s trade label, the wording on which mirrors the labels of rival John Miers.

During 1785, whilst working in Liverpool, silhouette artist John Miers lodged at the home of Mrs Mary Lightfoot who would have observed him at work and viewed examples of his completed commissions. Seeing his success prompted Mrs Lightfoot to try her own hand at silhouette painting – how difficult could it be? No doubt she found out as, despite her natural talent as evidenced by this profile, her artistic career was in the end short-lived. Born Mary Lightbound in 1744, she married Master Mariner Thomas Lightfoot at the age of 23. Their eldest daughter, also named Mary, followed her mother’s example by taking up profile painting but this provoked outrage from John Miers who rightfully resented having his work compared unfavorably to that of a competitor who had taken unfair advantage of him.