William Brabier

Showing a gentleman in a coat with a high rolled collar, this profile is reverse painted in solid black on convex glass with a touch of transparency used for the neck-tie and his up-brushed hair. The silhouette is backed with gesso that may originally have been pink but which is now off-white in colour.

A pencil inscription on the backing board names the sitter as William Brabier (or similar) who died in 1815. The silhouette is set in the original turned pearwood frame.

Austrian-born, Charles Rosenberg (1745-1844) is thought to have come to England in 1761 as a fourteen year old page to Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz when she arrived to marry King George III. As a favourite of the King’s, Rosenberg was promoted from the role of page to King’s Messenger and this connection may explain why he later enjoyed royal and aristocratic patronage throughout his career as an artist. He moved to Bath where he married a Miss Wooley at Bath Abbey in September 1790 and settled down close to the fashionable ‘Walks’ and Assembly Rooms, becoming one of the most successful silhouettists of the period.