A Distinguished Officer

John Lea’s inimitable profiles are prized for their distinctive and appealing style as well as for their comparative rarity. Each silhouette was painstakingly painted on convex glass in shades of black with scratching out used to good effect for costume details. This example depicts a distinguished-looking officer in a bound pigtail wig and military uniform with a cross belt and epaulette.

Set within a gold verre églomisé border, the profile is presented in its original papier-mâché frame.

The silhouette artist John Lea was born in 1768, probably in Portsmouth; he married a local girl, Elizabeth Nelson. Settling at Grand Parade, Portsmouth, they had four sons and five daughters, though three children did not survive infancy. Trade directories list John Lea as a glazier. At some point after 1814, the family upped sticks and moved to London and it was there that he died in 1828 at the age of 60. His obituary described him as a man of ‘superior natural intelligence’ with excellent ‘conversational talents’, ‘unaffected piety’ and a ‘benevolence of character’.