Silhouette, Portrait of a Man in a Top Hat

London, 1850. Collage heightened in gilt ink laid down to card stock, 4 1/2 x 3 3/4 inches (104 x 95 mm). Light attenuation and minor uniform toning, otherwise in good condition. Presented in a simple black wood frame of the period, with a label from the Harry Denne Gallery, Bond Street, on the mat back. William Hubard, sometimes known as "Master Hubard," was a British born American artist who settled in Boston in about 1820, in his late teenage years. He opened a gallery on the corner of Milk and Congress Streets at Julien Hall, in the heart of Boston's Financial District. His gallery became well known for Hubard's silhouette's, which he produced prodigiously for sitters in moments, using nothing but black paper, a pair of scissors, and sometimes a dash of gold ink. Hubard filled his gallery with silhouette likenesses of famous people, beggars, fiddlers, great works of architecture, and all types of animals. Each evening he presented a panharmonicon concert in his gallery, and for 50¢ the public was invited to enjoy the gallery, the concert, and have their likeness created by hand in moments by Hubard.

In the early 1830s Hubard married the daughter of a wealthy patron, and moved to Richmond, Virginia, where he won major commissions to paint portraits of notables such as Andrew Jackson, and James Marshall, as well as several commissions from the Virginia General Assembly. Hubard enjoyed a successful career until his death in February 1862, when he was killed in an accidental explosion while making munitions for the Confederate States as the American Civil War raged around Richmond.

Works by Hubard may be found in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum and the Smithsonian.