A silhouette is a portrait or other image showing the outline of a subject, usually a profile, filled in with a single dark colour, typically black. Silhouettes may be cut from paper or card, or painted on paper, card, plaster, ivory or glass, and the best examples convey a striking likeness through outline alone.
The name is generally derived from Étienne de Silhouette, an eighteenth-century French finance minister whose name became associated with cheap or economical things. Silhouettes were enormously popular in Britain, Europe and America from about the 1770s until the arrival of photography in the mid nineteenth century, offering an affordable alternative to painted portrait miniatures. Leading British practitioners included John Miers, who painted delicate profiles on plaster and card, Isabella Beetham, known for her work on glass, and the French-born Augustin Edouart, who cut full-length figures. Fine silhouettes may be enhanced with gold or bronze highlights to suggest hair, lace and costume. Collectors look for artists' trade labels on the reverse, original frames of pearwood, papier-mâché or brass, and sharp, undamaged outlines without fading, foxing or staining. Groups of silhouettes displayed together make an elegant and characterful wall arrangement.
