Georgian Chignon

Painted on card, this profile shows an elegant lady wearing her hair in a chignon fastened with ribbon. As suggested by Sue McKechnie in her reference work on silhouettes, this appears to be a commissioned copy of an earlier work by John Miers.

The silhouette is set in a traditional papier-mâché frame with an acorn hanger and is backed with a variant of the artist’s trade label no. 1.

Born in 1761, Joshua was the eldest child of Joshua Trewinnard, a watchmaker, and Jane (née Stackhouse) of Bermondsey. Joshua married twice: firstly in 1784 to Anne Smith, a miniature painter, with whom he had four daughters; and secondly in 1814 to Elizabeth Woodzer with whom he had another daughter. Trewinnard worked both as a watchmaker alongside his younger brothers and as a profilist.