Silhouette of Unknown Woman

 Silhouette, Unknown Woman, Pennsylvania, c. 1805

Maker: Moses Williams, American, (1777-1825)
Medium: Hollow-cut silhouette on wove paper
P87 Museum Purchase in 2018

Silhouettes, also known as profiles, were the most common and inexpensive way to capture a person’s image in the years following the Revolution. Early Americans saw the outline of these profiles as indicative of an individual’s character.

By 1805, the Annapolis raised artist Charles Willson Peale remarked, “Profiles are seen in nearly every house in the United States of America.” This silhouette of an unknown woman was created by Moses Williams, a young enslaved man held in the household of Charles Willson Peale. An enslaved couple, Lucy and John Scarborough, were made as payment to Peale for paintings he did in Annapolis. The Peale family moved to Philadelphia in 1776 and in 1786 the couple was free under Pennsylvania law; however, their young son Moses Williams was not. He grew up in the Peale household and was taught to make silhouettes which he made at Peale’s Philadelphia museum. In 1803, 8880 people — about 80 percent of all visitors to the museum that year — bought a silhouette.

To make a perfect profile or silhouette the artist could use a device called a physiognotrace in a dark room with a candle to cast a shadow. While the silhouette maker traced the shadow of the sitter’s head, the physiognotrace made a shallow cut onto a piece of dark paper, producing a smaller image of the sitter’s profile.

The silhouette maker then completed the cut out and mounted it onto a white background. The design was created in 1784 in Versailles by Gilles-Louis Chrétien (1754-1811) and later perfected in 1802 by British-born John Isaac Hawkins (1772-1805) who lived in Philadelphia. He sold the machine to the artist Charles Willson Peale for his museum. The design became popular and was used by several other profile makers in the early 19th century to get an accurate likeness.

Peale manumitted Williams a year before his 28th birthday, one year earlier than he would have naturally gained his freedom under Pennsylvania law. He married a white woman, the Peale family cook, and was able to buy a house. Later years were financially difficult for Moses when silhouettes were eclipsed by photography. This silhouette in the collection reminds us of Moses’ important story and his skills as an early American artisan.

By Rachel Lovett, Curator