77 - Augustin Amand Constant Fidel Édouart,

Augustin Amand Constant Fidel Édouart, French 1788/89-1861- Silhouette of a lady, wearing a bonnet and holding a book, and a gentleman holding a top hat, in an interior; pencil, watercolour, and cut black paper laid down on paper, signed and dated 'Augin. Edouart. fecit 1838' (lower right), 26.4 x 17.7 cm. Provenance: Private Collection, UK. Note: Édouart left his native France in 1814 to settle in London, where he began his career making portraits from hair. He started making the intricately-cut silhouettes, for which he is best known, in 1825, after which he toured England, Scotland, and the United States, where he enjoyed particularly great success, producing around 5,000 portrait silhouettes in the three years he was in Edinburgh. Towards the end of his career, Édouart returned to France, where he created silhouettes of prominent sitters, including Victor Hugo (1802-1885). The present work is absolutely typical of Édouart's oeuvre, recalling a group of ten similar silhouettes by the artist which sold at Sotheby's, London, on 14 April 2011, lot 228 (£27,500), as well as another portrait which sold at Eldred's, Massachusetts, on 26 July 2022, lot 2233 ($2,100 hammer).