Silhouette

“the image of a person, animal, object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single color, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject'”(wikipedia). Silhouettes were one of the most popular forms of portraiture in early America. Unlike ivory miniatures, they were cheap and fast to make: even Edouart, the most famous silhouette-maker of his day, fixed his prices at “five shillings for the full-length figure, children (the whole length too) three and six, while a profile bust cost only one shilling.” You can see a large range of silhouettes of early American Jews in the Loeb Portrait Database.

Augustin Amant Constance Fidele Edouart, “Rebecca Moses cutting silhouettes of her friends Fanny and Hyam Asher” (1840). Courtesy AJHS and the Loeb portrait database.

 

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