Theophilus Pritzler

This silhouette has been painstakingly painted on convex glass in shades of black in John Lea’s inimitable style and backed with plaster. It shows a middle-aged gentleman named Theophilus Pritzler wearing a pigtail wig tied with a small ribbon bow.

Set within a gold verre églomisé border, the profile is presented in its original papier-mâché frame with a decorative gilt metal rim. Two names are inscribed on the reverse with one crossed through so the sitter is therefore assumed to be Theophilus Pritzler.

The silhouette artist John Lea was born in 1768, probably in Portsmouth; he married a local girl, Elizabeth Nelson. Settling at Grand Parade, Portsmouth, they had four sons and five daughters, though three children did not survive infancy. Trade directories list John Lea as a glazier. At some point after 1814, the family upped sticks and moved to London and it was there that he died in 1828 at the age of 60. His obituary described him as a man of ‘superior natural intelligence’ with excellent ‘conversational talents’, ‘unaffected piety’ and a ‘benevolence of character’.