Beschreibung:

Auguste Edouart (French, active U.K., U.S., 1789-1861) "Large Portrait Silhouette of the Families of Dr. John Clarke (1773-1846) and of Ferdinand Andrews (b. 1794)", Saratoga Springs, New York", 1840 paper cut-outs on sepia ink/wash signed, localized and dated "Aug. 1840" lower center, frame backing with "E. Grosvenor Paine" sales label and label with information from Mrs. F. Nevill Jackson's book. Glazed in a period bird's-eye maple frame. sight 15-1/2" x 35-1/2", framed 21-1/2" x 41-1/2" Provenance: Collection of Edward Grosvenor Paine (1911-1994), London, New York and New Orleans; L. F. Antique Show, 1977; Hanes & Ruskin Antiques, Old Lyme, Connecticut, 2012; Estate of Dr. Carroll Ball, Jackson, Mississippi. Literature: Mrs. F. Nevill Jackson, Ancestors in Silhouette Cut by Auguste Edouart. New York: John Lane Co., 1921, pp. 192, 198-199. Notes: The majority of this extraordinary collection of portrait silhouettes and miniatures was selectively culled over several decades for Dr. Ball by two of the most prominent dealers in the genre- Peggy McClard in Houston, Texas, and Hanes and Ruskin in Olde Lyme, Connecticut. Even more importantly, most of the silhouettes by Auguste Edouart offered here were from the artist’s personal collection that was salvaged from the wreckage of his ship the Oneida after it sunk off the island of Guernsey in 1849. Auguste Edouart, a French emigre sought refuge in England following the French Revolution, where he began his career as a “hair picturist”, snipping and braiding elaborate lockets of hair into mourning portraits and art. His versatility with scissors, by happenstance, led him to silhouettes after he won a heated debate with a friend that mechanically cut silhouettes were not more effective than hand-cut ones. To prove his point, he cut a portrait with crisp precision and extraordinary likeness in under two minutes, earning him his first commission of its kind. Edouart’s silhouettes were so exact, even down to the hair-style and cut-out white of the gentlemen’s collars, Edouart rarely embellished them with chalk, gouache or gold as many less accomplished silhouettists did. Some silhouettes were on plain white card, more elaborate ones appeared on lithographic interiors; the rarest and most valuable of all were placed on fine sepia inkwash backgrounds Edouart painted in situ. Over the next twenty-four years, he cut thousands of silhouettes in the U.K. and the U.S., earning him the reputation as one of the most accomplished silhouette artists of his time. Ten of these prolific years were spent in the U.S., capturing the physiognomy and fashion of the most important politicians, socialites and entrepreneurs of the time, including six former presidents, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Madame Jumel- whose portrait miniature, along with her ex-husband’s (Aaron Burr), is offered at sale in one of the succeeding lots. Though Edouart worked mostly in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York, he traveled south to Kentucky and Louisiana. When Edouart cut a silhouette, he doubled the paper, creating a copy for his own collection, which he then placed on card. On the backs of each, he typically dated and localized the work, and often wrote the sitters’ names. By the time he left America in 1849 on the ill-fated Oneida bound for England, his work filled twenty-one folios, many of which contained several hundred silhouettes. Much of his lifetime work was lost with the ship. Numerous folios were rescued, though badly damaged by water. Devastated, Edouart gave them to the Lukis family with whom he resided and convalesced after the shipwreck. Years later in 1911, Mrs. F. Nevill (Emily) Jackson placed an advertisement in a London paper seeking silhouettes for research. The Lukis family sold her sixteen of the folios. Jackson meticulously photographed and indexed the albums, and then restored them. The removed the black paper cut-outs from the damaged cards, pressed them and placed them on new cards. Since Ed