Golden Ringlets

This delightful cut and finely gilded silhouette shows a little girl with golden curls in a dress trimmed on the shoulders with ribbon and tied at the waist with a bow, worn with pantaloons embroidered with flowers and dainty shoes with ankle straps.

The silhouette is signed and dated bottom right, ‘F. W. Seville 1841’. It can be deduced from advertisements that Seville was touring northern Irish towns during 1841.

The silhouette is housed in a handsome burr walnut frame with a later gilt slip. There is a single small wormhole visible in the tail of the skirt; this is now backed with black paper to minimise it.

Frederick William Seville was the son of William Seville (b.1797) of Manchester. Frederick worked with his father from about 1840 onwards as an itinerant artist cutting silhouettes and painting miniature portraits. They travelled around Scotland, Ireland, Wales and the northern counties of England as shown by numerous advertisements in local newspapers. Frederick was considered particularly skilled at the gilding work as evidenced by this fine example.