Family Portraits

Meet the Whitmore Family!

This splendid group of nine silhouette portraits depicts members of the Whitmore Family of Shropshire and London. They are:

• John Whitmore (1750-1826) & his wife Caroline née Williams (d.1833)
  and their children –
• John (1779-1842), William (1780-1813), Caroline (1782-1806), Edward (b.1784), Robert (1788-1859), Elizabeth (1789-1811) & Frederick (b.1790)

John Whitmore Sen. (centre top) inherited a successful Portuguese mercantile business from his father. He was a banker and served as Governor of the Bank of England between 1808 and 1810. Whitmore was also elected MP for Bridgnorth from 1795 until 1806. In 1778 he married Caroline Williams (centre middle). As shown, the couple had five sons and two daughters.

The Whitmore family are linked to Apley Hall in Shropshire though the children were born at Coleman Street near St Paul’s Cathedral, London.

Dating to the 1790s, the silhouettes are all painted on plaster and are set behind convex glass within a papier-mâché surround in the original decorative gilt wood frame. There is light dust under the glass of some profiles but otherwise these are in fine condition.

Master silhouette artist John Miers preferred the simplicity and grace of a black profile without the addition of gilt embellishment. His black profiles contrast well against the white base with costume and hair details achieved by thinning the black pigment to add texture. Having worked initially in his home town of Leeds, Miers spent time on the road before moving to London in 1791 where he set up what was to become a successful and long-running profile studio on the Strand.