Silhouette

Author	Van Bath
Title	[Female portrait]
Date	1903
Register	02398

Like the physionotrace, we can also consider the technique of silhouette portraiture to be a forerunner of photographic portraiture. It met people's demand to have their portrait at a low price. It consisted of figures made by cutting out a dark piece of cardboard, usually black, which reproduced the outline of a person's face. The cardboard with the trimmed profile was glued on a sheet of light coloured paper. The name of this technique (silhouette, in French) is related to Étienne de Silhouette, minister of finance to the French king Louis XV, in the mid-18th century, although the reason for this is not known for certain. Some believe that the fame of this minister made the word silhouette popularly used to define everything that is simple, cheap or that has no distinctive features. Others believe that the emergence in this era of the fashion of the silhouette, with austere dresses, without adornments or pockets, was the reason. In 1783, Jean-Gaspard Levater popularised silhouette portraits with the construction of a device to draw them. This technique became very popular until the second half of the 19

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