Hudson, Elizabeth, Mrs

Gender:

Female

Date and place of birth:

Unknown

Date and place of death:

Unknown

Worked:

(fl) c 1793-1802

Known places of work:

Bath

Known techniques:

Painted on glass

Known materials:

Paint dead black

Frames:

Pearwood & pressed brass

Signature:

Recorded

Introduction:

Mrs. Hudson was an accomplished and successful artist in her own time, more prolific in her work in hair and wax than silhouettes but still highly regarded today as a profilist. The daughter of a jeweller and schoolmistress from Bath, Mrs. Hudson had a long and varied career, working and exhibiting across England.

In her early years Mrs. Hudson worked for her father’s jewellery business in Bath, producing the hair-work for the back of lockets. She was married in 1777 and an advertisement in Aris’ Birmingham Gazette, 1779 shows her offering hair work independently. It is not certain when she began painting silhouettes. However, in the early-1790s she left London, visiting Oxford, Worcester and Birmingham by December 1795. On these tours she advertised likenesses painted on glass, profiles for lockets and bracelets, coloured portraits painted on ivory and modelling in wax. Two trade labels for her silhouette work exist, number one in use from 1794-97 and number two produced for her visit to Buxton 1797. Under the earlier label pearwood frames and very convex glass was used. With the later pieces, silhouettes were framed with pressed brass and backed with pinkish plaster.

Mrs. Hudson was a true artist with a natural ability. Her profiles are notable for their use of colour. Only the sitter’s face is shown in true black. The clothing is instead painted in deep brown, with considerable transparency used for the detail. The bases are fingerpainted and hair is painted in strokes fine enough to suggest the use of a quill or single-haired brush. Bows and ribbons on men’s wigs are very distinctive, typically shaped like a crown. Mrs. Hudson also favoured Chinese white for fine detail on clothing such as buttons. The bust-line termination is a thick line beneath the transparency and varies in shape. Sometimes there is no termination and the profile is continued to the base. Unusually, her jewellery pieces are painted directly onto the underside of convex glass, before being backed with ivory. Mrs. Hudson is very popular today, though her work remains comparatively rare for one ostensibly so prolific.