Portrait of a woman 1795

This is a silhouette portrait of a woman, made by August Forberger in the late 18th or early 19th century. It's made by cutting out a profile from dark paper and affixing it to a light background. It is a diminutive, intimate object. Silhouettes like this were an efficient means of portraiture before the advent of photography. The process of creating them was relatively simple, using scissors or a specialized cutting machine. Yet the skill lay in capturing the essence of the subject's likeness with minimal detail. Note how the artist has used the cut-out to his advantage, rendering the sitter's fashionable bonnet in exquisite detail by cutting away tiny portions of the paper. In their time, silhouettes were a relatively affordable way for a broader segment of society to have their likeness preserved. While not as detailed as a painting, this small portrait speaks volumes about the democratization of image-making during this period, when even ordinary people could participate in the culture of portraiture.