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Lot Essay
This silhouette is listed in Mrs. F. Neville Jackson, The Catalogue of 3,800 Named and Dated American Silhouette Portraits of American Citizens by August Edouart (London, 1926), Appendix, p. 541, which dates it to May 15, 1844 (see lot 640). A silhouette of Hamilton Smith, an attorney and the brother of William Ballard Smith, appears in Andrew Oliver, Auguste Edouart's Silhouettes of Eminent Americans, 1839-1844 (Virginia, 1977), fig. 7.
August Edouart (1789-1861) spent six years in America, from 1839 to 1845. He traveled throughout eastern America, spending each summer in Saratoga Springs. His trip to Kentucky was taken in the late spring and early summer of 1844, when he did this portrait. His method involved cutting the silhouette out of a single piece of paper printed in solid black on one side only, which he folded in half. When he was finished, he separated the two halves of the paper, which provided him with an exact copy of the silhouette. He retained one copy of every silhouette he cut in albums; during his stay in the United States, he recorded cutting 3,800 silhouettes. Many of his copies were lost when the ship carrying him back to Europe was wrecked and he was able to save only a few albums of his American cuttings.
August Edouart (1789-1861) spent six years in America, from 1839 to 1845. He traveled throughout eastern America, spending each summer in Saratoga Springs. His trip to Kentucky was taken in the late spring and early summer of 1844, when he did this portrait. His method involved cutting the silhouette out of a single piece of paper printed in solid black on one side only, which he folded in half. When he was finished, he separated the two halves of the paper, which provided him with an exact copy of the silhouette. He retained one copy of every silhouette he cut in albums; during his stay in the United States, he recorded cutting 3,800 silhouettes. Many of his copies were lost when the ship carrying him back to Europe was wrecked and he was able to save only a few albums of his American cuttings.