Ann Hawkins

The lady in this hollow-cut silhouette is identified on the reverse as Mrs Hawkins née Ann Colborne. She is depicted here wearing a ruff collar with her hair drawn back in a plaited knot.

The eldest of two daughters, Ann was born in Chippenham in 1752 to Joseph Colborne and Jane Wastfield. She was just three years old when her mother died. In 1779, aged 27, Ann married John Hawkins and with him had three sons and a daughter, the youngest born a few months after her husband’s early death. Ann herself was 71 when died in 1823.

The silhouette is presented in the original ebonised frame with a crenellated inner border and is in fine untouched condition.

Active between 1772 and 1787, Sarah Harrington specialised in ‘hollow-cut’ silhouettes where the profile was cut out of white paper but it was the surrounding paper that was retained and backed with either black paper or silk. Having taken up silhouette cutting in later life, Mrs Harrington successfully patented her method of producing profiles in 1775. She regularly went on tour attracting a steady clientele. As a well-educated lady herself, she advocated the education of women even giving geography lessons to young ladies.