Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/452

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XL MAY s, im

backgrounds, which represent the walls anc windows of a room of the period, and are different in each picture, add greatly to the effect

I have long wished, like L. A. W., to obtain some particulars of Edouart, and within the last few weeks a friend has kindly lent me a book with the following title-page : '' A Treatise on Silhouette Likenesses, by Monsieur Edouart, Silhouettist to the French Royal Family, and patronized by his Royal Highness the late Duke of Gloucester and the Principal Nobility of England, Scotland, and Ireland." It was published in 1835, contains 122+vii pages, and is illustrated with reproductions of silhouettes of the author ; the Duke of Gloucester ; Dr. Majendie, Bishop of Bangor ; Daniel O'Connell, who is represented, as described by L. A. W., reading The Times ; the Rev. Charles Simeon ; Napoleon ; John Smith Barry ; and Signer Paganini, as well as by a number of reproductions of various scenes cut out in black, such as chess-players, a skirmish of cavalry, John's funny story to Mary the cook, a fox-hunt, &c. The book principally consists of a glorification of the author's art, an account of his experiences with his clients, and a list of his chief works ; but some information as to his life is to be obtained from it. He tells us that he was a native of France and came to England in 1813 in consequence of the change of government in his country. During the evacuation of Holland he lost all he possessed, and on his arrival in England he sought to obtain a livelihood by teaching French. Subsequently he began, to make devices and landscapes with human hair, and, after an introduction to the Duchess of York, invented " the modelling of animals covered with their own hair so as to imitate nature " ; but as it took him two or three months to accomplish the likeness of a dog, this did not prove a very profitable em- ployment.

At last, after encountering many diffi- culties, he began in 1825 to take silhouette likenesses an occupation in which he found, as he says, relief from the gloom and sorrow occasioned by the death of his wife, as well as pecuniary advantage. He took the like- nesses simply by the use of a pair of scissors and black paper, and dwells on the superiority of his method over that adopted by others, in which the likeness was taken by means of a machine passed over the face, or from a shadow of the profile. From an early period he recognized the importance of perspective, and in order that all his like-

nesses might be on the same scale, he was accustomed to take the ; height of his clients with a military standard. The backgrounds were prepared by artists under his own direction ; and owing to the injury which had been done to his pictures by careless workmen, a frame-maker of his own always accompanied him. On the background of his portrait in the book is a list of the towns in which he had stayed, including Cheltenham, London, Oxford, Cambridge, Bath, Bristol, Windsor, Perth, Glasgow, Dublin, Cork, Killarney, Kinsale, &c. ; and laudatory notices of his work in those places are given in an appendix. The time occupied in taking a likeness averaged five minutes, and his charge was five shillings.

He seems to have been of a highly sensitive disposition, and devotes a chapter to the vexations and slights his profession brought upon him, and another to the grievances and miseries of artists. Duplicates of the likenesses which he took were retained by him, and pasted in books. It would be of interest to discover what has become of a collection which, at the time he published his book, included over 50,000 portraits. F. ELRESTGTON BALL.

Dublin.

L. A. W. is right in his conjecture about the name. A good notice of Edouard, and well illustrated, appeared in The English Illustrated Magazine of July, 1890 (vol. viii. pp. 747-52), by the late Mr. Andrew W. Tuer. It contains biographical details, and the O'Connell portrait is mentioned and figured on p. 750.

The Strand of November, 1896, had also an article on ' Great Men's Shadows,' by Mr. S. J. Housley, and there is a little more about Edouard. The O'Connell portrait is again reproduced, and other workers are mentioned. The last illustration to this is a view of the "profile machine" of Schmal- calder. S. L. PETTY.

CHARLES LAMB'S CAPT. STARKEY (10 S. xi. 241, 295). The portrait of Capt. Starkey mentioned at the latter reference is a wretched cut of the Catnach type, taken 'rom a genuine picture painted by a well- mown artist of his day Henry Perlee Parker. Parker, colleague in after years of T. M. Richardson and J. W. Carmichael, Devonport) in 1815, and made his mark by aainting a picture of fourteen " Newcastle Eccentrics," assembled in a great resort of hawkers, cadgers, and the like, known as
 * ame to Newcastle from Plymouth Dock