A silhouette is an outline image (usually a profile portrait) in solid flat colour, most commonly in black against a white background.  The term derives from Etienne de Silhouette (1706-67), French Minister of Finance under Louis XV, who cut shadow portraits as a hobby.  Until the end of the 18^th century silhouette portraits were more commonly known in Britain as ‘profiles’ or ‘shades’.  This form of portraiture, being relatively quick and inexpensive to produce, was very popular from the 1750s to the 1850s, when it was overtaken by photography.

Silhouettes, whether cut from black paper or painted, were originally made by tracing the shadow cast by a bright light.  However, such was the demand for them that in 1786 a French musician turned artist, Gilles-Louis Chrétien, invented a mechanical device, the Physionotrace, with which any reasonably competent person could trace an outline.  This and similar machines were used in portrait studios across Europe and particularly in America, where C.B.J.F. de Saint-Mémin, for example,  used it to produce profile portraits of the country’s revolutionary leaders.