WILLIAM JAMES HUBARD (BRITISH-AMERICAN, 1807-1862), ATTRIBUTED, CUT-AND-PASTED SILHOUETTE OF A YOUNG WOMAN, having gilt highlights, sitter sporting ringlets, off-the-shoulder dress, retains remnants of worn label attached verso for "Hubard" gallery charging "one shilling" for "likenesses" cut with "common scissors". Housed in a period black-painted frame with reeded profile. Circa 1825. 3 3/4" x 2 5/8" sight, 4 7/8" x 3 7/8" OA.
Silhouette in excellent visual condition. Frame with surface wear. Not examined out of frame.
Provenance: From a Northern Virginia collection.
Catalogue Note: William James Hubbard (1807-1862) was recognized as a gifted silhouette artist at an early age in his native England. He was so successful, in fact, that he traveled to the United States in 1824 in an effort to ply his craft and expand his clientele. Tired of the silhouette craft after several years, however, he turned to oil painting at the behest of several artist friends and continued to find work in the 1820s and 1830s in London and in the United States, namely Baltimore and Philadelphia. In 1832, Hubard moved to Gloucester, VA, where he married, and, after several more years of travel back and forth to Europe, eventually settled in Richmond, VA where he established a foundry in an effort to produce bronze reproductions of Jean Antoine Houdon's (1741-1828) bust of George Washington in the State Capitol. The project failed, however, and Hubard was ruined financially. He was later able to secure a Confederate government contract for producing ammunition at the start of the Civil War but died tragically in an explosion at the factory.

Silhouette in excellent visual condition. Frame with surface wear. Not examined out of frame.