Eeh by Gum . . .

John Miers’ career as a silhouette artist began in his home town of Leeds in 1781 when he advertised ‘profile shades in miniature’ at a cost of 2s 6d apiece as well as ‘elegant oval picture-frames’. This was secondary to his main business of preparing and selling paints but such was the success of his profile painting, that he soon auctioned off his stock of paints and utensils to become a full-time profilist.

This silhouette painted on plaster is amongst Miers’ earliest work and shows a Yorkshire gentleman in a bound pigtail wig wearing a buttoned-up coat. It resides behind flat glass in the original plaster frame backed with the artist’s complete trade label no. 3 (‘Oil tarr 3s’) in use during 1782 in Leeds. The frame has been gilded (pre-1941) and there is a little chipping and an old repair to the pink plaster reverse (all perfectly stable).