Attention Seeking

One of Augustin Edouart’s stylistic traits was to give his sitters tiny cut eyelashes. This applied also to his canine friends including this lively dog as he jumps up looking for attention. The silhouette is presented in a lovely ebonised frame with brass corner rosettes. The frame has some rubbing which gives it a charming patina.

Although best known for his individual silhouettes of people, Augustin Edouart (1788-1861) also cut family conversation pieces, often with the family dog. Alongside an archive of his work, he also kept scrapbooks in which he pasted practice and experimental cuttings. Unfortunately these scrapbooks and his archive volumes were mostly all lost at sea when Edouart was shipwrecked off the coast of Guernsey in 1829. Some years ago a salvaged scrapbook came to light in a Parisian bookshop and this is the source of this unique cutting. The silhouette carries a stamp of authenticity on the backing board.