Auguste Edouart

{{Short description|French-American painter}}

Image:Portrait of Auguste Edouart.png

Auguste Amant Constant Fidèle Edouart (1789–1861) was a French-born portrait artist who worked in England, Scotland and the United States in the 19th century. He specialised in silhouette portraits.

Biography

Born in Dunkerque, he left France in 1814, and established himself in London, where he began his career making portraits from hair. In 1825, he began work as a silhouette portraitist, taking full-length likenesses in profile by cutting out black paper with scissors. Edouart spent fifteen years touring England and in 1829 arrived in Edinburgh. He remained there for three years, during which time he produced some 5,000 likenesses.[http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person.php?LinkID=mp06932&role=art National Portrait Gallery, London]. Retrieved 2010-09-05 Edouart travelled in the United States in about 1839–49, visiting New York, Boston and other locales.

He later returned to France, where he worked on smaller silhouettes. They included one of the most notable writers of this period, Victor Hugo.Victor Hugo in Guernsey; Canadian Art Publications; Date: January 26, 2011Ethel Stanwood Bolton. Wax portraits and silhouettes. Massachusetts Society of the Colonial Dames of America, 1915. [https://books.google.com/books?id=cysTAAAAYAAJ Google books]New York Herald; Date: November 23, 1844

Portraits

Edouart created portraits of hundreds of subjects, including:

  • Samuel Appleton and family[http://www.historicnewengland.org/collections-archives-exhibitions/collections-access Historic New England]. Retrieved 2010-09-05
  • Fanny Brawne
  • Captain Edward Bolton[http://www.mfa.org/collections Museum of Fine Arts Boston collections] Retrieved 2010-09-05
  • William Buckland, Frank Buckland
  • Charles Burroughs
  • Henry Clay
  • John Connell and family"Connell, John, David, Arthur and Mrs. Approx. 5 ½" x 8" cut by August Edouart in Glasgow, June 10, 1832. Reproduced for the Boston Evening Transcript. Sat. Nov. 4, 1939." [http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Inventories/silhouettes.htm American Antiquarian Society] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100907040335/http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Inventories/silhouettes.htm |date=September 7, 2010 }}. Retrieved 2010-09-05
  • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier[http://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/online_az/4:322/?initial=E&artistId=3227&artistName=Augustin%20Edouart&submit=1 National Galleries Scotland] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100613124922/http://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/online_az/4%3A322/?initial=E&artistId=3227&artistName=Augustin%20Edouart&submit=1 |date=June 13, 2010 }}. Retrieved 2010-09-05
  • Samuel Freeman
  • Samuel Griswold Goodrich{{cite journal |author=Nevill Jackson |title= Some men of letters in silhouette |journal=The Bookman |date= Jan 1912 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0645eWSqkFsC }}
  • Sarah Josepha Hale[https://www.flickr.com/photos/piedmont_fossil/506282921/ Flickr]. Retrieved 2010-09-05
  • Thaddeus Mason Harris{{citation |title=Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society |date= April 1912 |page=560 |publisher= The Society |url=http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000681901 }}
  • Josiah Harlan{{Cite web |title=Josiah Harlan {{!}} National Portrait Gallery |url=https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_S_NPG.91.126.109.B |access-date=2022-12-15 |website=npg.si.edu}}
  • Robert Knox
  • Francis LieberMack and Mack. Like a sponge thrown into water: Francis Lieber's European travel journal of 1844-1845. University of South Carolina Press, 2002
  • Liston, comedian
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  • John Loudoun McAdam
  • John Moss (see American Collector Magazine September 1943)
  • Stephen Olin[http://collections.si.edu/search/results.jsp?q=record_ID:npg_NPG.91.126.35.B Smithsonian]. Retrieved 2010-09-05
  • Theophilus Parsons
  • Samuel Jarvis Peters{{Cite web|title=Samuel Jarvis Peters|url=https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_S_NPG.91.126.61.A|access-date=2021-05-06|website=npg.si.edu|language=en}}
  • Walter Scott
  • Daniel Webster

Collections

Works by Edouart reside in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, London; National Galleries of Scotland; Crawford Art Gallery, Cork; New York Historical Society;[http://emuseum.nyhistory.org/code/emuseum.asp NY Historical Society] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100620142903/http://emuseum.nyhistory.org/code/emuseum.asp? |date=2010-06-20 }}. Retrieved 2010-09-05 Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Historic New England; and the American Jewish Historical Society, New York.

Exhibitions

[http://crawfordartgallery.ie/Exhibition_Silhouette.html The Art of the Silhouette in 19th-century Cork], which included works by Edouart, Stephen O’Driscoll (c.1825-1895), and miniature portraits of members of the Crawford Family, was held at Crawford Art Gallery, Cork in 2015.

"Black Out: Silhouettes Then and Now", which included works by Edouart, Moses Williams, and others, held at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C. May 31, 2018 to March 10, 2019, and the Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham AL, September 28, 2019 to January 12, 2020.

References

{{reflist|2}}

Further reading

  • Edouart. A Treatise on Silhouette Likenesses by Monsieur Edouart, Silhouettist to the French Royal Family, and patronized by His Royal Highness, the late Duke of Gloucester and the principal Nobility of England, Scotland, and Ireland. 1835
  • The Man Who Saved His Life by Giving His Body for Dissection. Barre Gazette (Massachusetts); Date: 03-28-1845
  • Andrew W. Tuer. Art of Silhouetting. English illustrated magazine. 1890. [https://books.google.com/books?id=2dsvAAAAMAAJ Google books]
  • Alice Van Leer Carrick. Shades of our ancestors: American profiles and profilists. Little, Brown, and Company, 1928. [https://books.google.com/books?id=F-trAAAAIAAJ Google books]
  • Andrew Oliver. Auguste Edouart's Silhouettes of Eminent Americans, 1839-1844. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1977
  • {{cite web |author=Penley Knipe |title= Shades and Shadow-Pictures: The Materials and Techniques of American Portrait Silhouettes |year= 1999 |url=http://cool.conservation-us.org/coolaic/sg/bpg/annual/v18/bp18-07.html }}