Machine-made silhouette portrait

A machine-made silhouette of a woman wearing an elaborate hat, initiated by an unknown maker in about 1810.

The silhouette was created in Halifax using 'Prosopographus, the Automaton Artist' - the machine that would draw someone's likeness in a single minute - according to the text on the reverse of the silhouette.

Although several inventions like Prosopographus were in existence, tracing technology of this kind was more widely known as physionotrace, after a machine invented in 1786 by Gilles Louis Chretien (1754-1811). Chretien's Physionotrace produced an engraved plate from which multiple copies of a profile could be printed.

Silhouettes became popular in Britain in the late 1700s. They were named after Etienne de Silhouette (1709-1767), a French finance minister and amateur profile artist.