Paper Silhouettes by Mrs. Collins

"Mrs. Collins" worked as a paper silhouette cutter in the city of Bath, England in the 1800s.

This silhouette portrait is presumed to of the famous author, Jane Austen.

Where does the word "silhouette" come from?

      Étienne de Silhouette (July 8, 1709 – 1767) was a French Controller-General of Finances under Louis XV.

      Sometimes said to be the next Niccolò Machiavelli, he was born in Limoges where his father Arnaud de Silhouette (from Biarritz, the modern Standard Basque form of the name would be Zuloeta) was sent. He studied finances and economics and spent a year in London learning from the economy of Britain.

Children learning to draw silhouettes in the 1800s

      He translated into French several works by Alexander Pope, Henry Bolingbroke, William Warburton's The Alliance between Church and State, (1736) as Dissertations sur l'Union de la Religion, de la Morale, et de la Politique (1742) and Baltasar Gracián's El político. The party of the Prince of Condé used his translations from English authors to criticize him but the protection of Madame Pompadour awarded him the position of Controller-General in 4 March 1759, the most extensive of all the administrative positions and a very unstable one. His task was to curb the running deficit and strengthen the finances for the Seven Years' War against Britain (1754–1763). Public opinion preferred his 72-million-livres public loan to the ferme générale, an outsourced tax collection system. He also reduced spending by the royal house and revised pensions. To favour free trade, he eliminated some taxes and established new ones operating on a unified French market.

      De Silhouette forecasted a bleak budget for 1760: income of 286 million livres compared to expenses of 503 million livres, including at least 94 million in debt service. In an attempt to restore the kingdom's finances by the English method of taxing the rich and privileged (nobility and church were exempt from taxes in the Ancien Régime). de Silhouette devised the "general subvention," i.e., taxes on external signs of wealth (doors and windows, farms, luxury goods, servants, profits). On 26 October, he took the war measure of ordering the melting down of goldware and silverware. He was criticized by the nobility including Voltaire, who thought his measures, though theoretically beneficial, were not suitable for war time and the French political situation.

      On 20 November 1759, after eight months in the position, he left the court and retired to a chateau at Bry-sur-Marne, where he set about improving it. After his death in 1767, his nephew and heir Clément de Laage completed that work.

      Étienne de Silhouette's short tenure as finance chief caused him to become an object of ridicule and his penny-pinching manner led the term à la Silhouette to be applied to things perceived as cheap.

      During this period an art form of growing popularity was a shadow profile cut from black paper. It provided a simple and inexpensive alternative for those who could not afford more decorative and expensive forms of portraiture, such as painting or sculpture. Those who considered it cheap attached the word "silhouette" to it. The name stuck and so today we know it as a silhouette.

Who Was Johann Kaspar Lavater?

Johann Kaspar Lavater's silhouette machine.

The German scientist, Johann Kaspar Lavater, (1741-1801) developed a "scientific" method for taking accurate silhouette portraits. He was also known as a  poet and physiognomist and was born at Zürich on the 15th of November 1741. He was educated at the gymnasium of his native town, where J. J. Bodmer and J. J. Breitinger were among his teachers. When barely one-and-twenty he greatly distinguished himself by denouncing, in conjunction with his friend, the painter H. Fuseli, an iniquitous magistrate, who was compelled to make restitution of his ill-gotten gains. In 1769 Lavater took orders, and officiated till his death as deacon or pastor in various churches in his native city. His oratorical fervour and genuine depth of conviction gave him great personal influence; he was extensively consulted as a casuist, and was welcomed with demonstrative enthusiasm in his numerous journeys through Germany. His mystical writings were also widely popular. Scarcely a trace of this influence has remained, and Lavater's name would be forgotten but for his work on physiognomy, Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntnis und Menschenliebe (1775-1778). The fame even of this book, which found enthusiastic admirers in France and England, as well as in Germany, rests to a great extent upon the handsome style of publication and the accompanying illustrations. It left, however, the study of physiognomy (q.v.), as desultory and unscientific as it found it. As a poet, Lavater published Christliche Lieder (1776-1780) and two epics, Jesus Messias (1780) and Joseph von Arimathia (1794), in the style of Klopstock. More important and characteristic of the religious temperament of Lavater's age are his introspective Aussichten in die Ewigkeit (4 vols., 1768-1778); Geheimes Tagebuch von einem Beobachter seiner selbst (2 vols., 1772-1773) and Pontius Pilatus, oder der Mensch in allen Gestalten (4 vols., 1782-1785). From 1774 on, Goethe was intimately acquainted with Lavater, but at a later period he became estranged from him, somewhat abruptly accusing him of superstition and hypocrisy. Lavater had a mystic's indifference to historical Christianity, and, although esteemed by himself and others a champion of orthodoxy, was in fact only an antagonist of rationalism. During the later years of his life his influence waned, and he incurred ridicule by some exhibitions of vanity. He redeemed himself by his patriotic conduct during the French occupation of Switzerland, which brought about his tragical death. On the taking of Zürich by the French in 1799, Lavater, while endeavouring to appease the soldiery, was shot through the body by an infuriated grenadier; he died after long sufferings borne with great fortitude, on the 2nd of January 1801.

Lavater himself published two collections of his writings, Vermischte Schriften (2 vols., 1774-1781), and Kleinere prosaische Schriften (3 vols., 1784-1785). His Nachgelassene Schriften were edited by G. Gessner (5 vols., 1801-1802); Sämtliche Werke (but only poems) (6 vols., 1836-1838); Ausgewählte Schriften (8 vols., 1841-1844). See G. Gessner, Lavaters Lebensbeschreibung (3 vols., 1802-1803); U. Hegner, Beiträge zur Kenntnis Lavaters (1836); F. W. Bodemann, Lavater nach seinem Leben, Lehren und Wirken (1856; 2nd ed., 1877); F. Muncker, J. K. Lavater (1883); H. Waser, J. K. Lavater nach Hegners Aufzeichnungen (1894); J. K. Lavater, Denkschrift zum 100. Todestag (1902).

"A Silhouette Portraiture Free"

This ad ran in the "El Paso Herald" in El Paso, Texas, Friday, December 1, 1916.

      Baron Scotford - late of 129 Regent Street, London W. and who made such a decided hit at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, will be with us Saturday, in Toy City (Basement), where he will make a Free Bust Portrait of every child accompanied by an adult.

      Baron Scotford is "The Greatest Silhouettist of the Age," and the press in all countries have paid him glowing tributes.

      He has executed Scissor Portraits of almost every king and queen of Europe, presidents of America, famous actresses and other distinguished persons.

      These Portraiture are executed in two minutes with scissors and black paper only.

      The illustrations above are taken from Baron Scotford's Gallery of Celebrities. The names from left to righat are:

      Her Royal Highness Princess Victoria, Lady Waterford. The Late Arch Duke Ferdinand of Austria, Mrs Winston Churchill and Her Royal Highness Princess Marie Louise Schleswig Holstein.

Related Links:

• Two silhouettes by Baron Scotford sold at Bonhams auction house
• Snipshots of Celebrities - a 1933 film depicting Baron Scotford as he works
• PR Silhouettes by Baron Scotford from 1915