Edouart, the French-born profilist who passed much of his career in England, has received much attention from writers on the silhouette. The most important sources of information are two publications by Jackson: Catalogue of 5, Named and Dated Silhouette Portraits, by Augustin Edouart London, and Ancestors in Silhouette; the latter contains the fullest account of Edouart's life and work. The artist's own now rare Treatise on Silhouette Likenesses should also be consulted, although allowances should be made for its egocentric tone.
Some of the illustrations from his treatise have often been reproduced; I have included some of the less familiar examples among the illustrations in the present account.
Edouart was born in Dunkerque in , the sixteenth child of his parents. He is reported as having managed a china factory, presumably in the neighbourhood of Dunkerque, at the age of nineteen. He served in the Napoleonic wars in which four of his brothers died and he himself was decorated , though the exact period of his military service is unknown. In he married Emilie Laurence Vital, who bore him five children. Previous writers agree that it was in that Edouart came to England, and the following notice, which appeared in the London press in December of that year, bears this out, while also throwing light on his early career in the country of his adoption:.
Edouart has the honour to inform the Nobility that he is just arrived from France, with many designs in Hair, of a kind hitherto unknown, in which he is the sole Inventor.
Fifteen years' study has enabled him to imitate the finest Engravings. His labors having never before been exposed to the public in any country, he begs to solicit amateurs of the Fine Art to honor him with a Visit in order that they may be able to form an idea of the beauty and delicacy of his performances. This advertisement implies that Edouart had been studying the making of pictures in hair since he was ten years old.
