Stooke, James

Introduction:

Jackson recorded Stooke as a portrait painter from Bristol, and there are silhouettes by Stooke in the Bristol Art Gallery .From these, we can ascertain that Stooke did not have a great talent as a profilist. However, his profiles on convex glass are notable for their small size and particularly for the fine detail Stooke used to paint the collars of the sitter. These were depicted by very fine lines and small dots. The profiles do not have a bust-line termination and are not often signed.

There are a number of silhouettes by Stooke in the Bristol Art Gallery, none of which, however, sug-gest that he would have possessed much talent as a portrait painter. One of these (Mr and Mrs Stooke; illustrated) presumably represents the profilist him-self and his wife. It is dated 26 March 1835; to judge from the appearance of the few examples seen, it was probably during the 1830s that Stooke painted pro­files.

Since, according to Jackson, one of his sil­houettes is inscribed on the back with the name 'Bar-bican', we can assume that he spent some time in London. As his profiles are rarely signed, and not of great merit, it is possible that he was also engaged in some other minor type of portraiture, such as painting profile miniatures in colour on card.

It is believed that Stooke was still living in 1850. Stooke's silhouettes on convex glass are notable for their small size. A feature of his style is that he

took the greatest pains to show the decoration on the fichus or turn-down collars of the time. Fine fines and tiny dots are shown on these. Hair is roughly painted with the brush in somewhat thinned pigment; men's collars are left white, sometimes with a little grey shading. The profiles which I have seen have no bust-line termination, and some are almost half-length.

The profiles are backed with wax, which on most examples is now in very poor condition and shows much cracking. Stooke generally used frames of poor quality. The joint profiles of him and his wife are in a good, small turned oval wooden frame, which Stooke no doubt chose especially for this pair of family pro­files. Other silhouettes, however, are either in small papier mâché frames, with flat double-leaf hangers, or in cheap wooden frames, with a rough hole cut for the profile in the middle.

A few larger profiles, in papier mâché frames of the normal size, have been doubtfully attributed to this artist, but as these are unsigned it is impossible to confirm the ascription to Stooke.

Ills. 1199-1201