TOP ROW

Edouart,The Artist's Children 1828 ; A Page of Objects ; Silhouette landscape c1920; Couple at leisure c1927; Lavater's Treatise on Physiognomy, interpretation of the profile.

BOTTOM ROW. Lavater's Treatise, taking a silhouette Portrait; from Lavater, Physiognomy, the artist's chair; Limomachia, a machine for taking likenesses; Schmalcalder's Profile Machine, patent drawing 1806.

The Silhouette had a claim to represent the origin of art, when a woman traced her lover's profile on the wall shortly before his departure. It was a sizeable and now neglected industry which relied upon manual dexterity of the cutting after drawing. There is a long tradition of cut paper arts, culminating perhaps in the articulated animation figures of Lotte Reiniger.

In a recent lecture David Watkin showed how he shot a scene for a film of Rossini's Cenerentola as if it were an eighteenth century silhouette.

Zeissig, The Origin of Painting 1767

to Mary Baker The Little Girl who Curtsied to an Owl

SILHOUETTE ZOOTROPES

DAVID PIPER ESSAY, SHADES,BIBLIO

THE PAPER MENU

MORE SILHOUETTES (FROM L'AVENTURINE)