Artist/Maker William King (Active late 18th - early 19th century)

Mrs. North as a Child

ca. 1805

Hollow-cut beige paper with black fabric underlay

Image (height): 2 3/8 in. (6 cm)
Framed: 5 1/2 × 4 1/2 × 3/4 in. (14 × 11.4 × 1.9 cm)

Gift of Mrs. J. Insley Blair, 1942

Z.2402

Born in Salem, Massachusetts, William King was a man of many talents—a cabinetmaker, ivory turner, and profilist—with a reportedly wayward side. He began advertising in 1804 and claimed to have cut over 20,000 silhouettes in the northeast. In one advertisement aimed at Boston clientele, he informed both sexes that “the correctness” of his profiles was well known, and that “the Ladies are particularly informed that he takes their Profiles without their faces being scraped with the machine, or their being ‘under disagreeable necessity of retiring into a dark room’ or having the shadow varied by the flare of a candle as he makes use of neither.”

DescriptionSilhouette: Bust of female subject in right-facing profile; image hollow-cut by machine from beige paper with black textile underlay; oval frame of stamped sheet brass on wood.

MarkingsEmbossed below bust: "W. KING"

ClassificationsDRAWINGS