Fowler, William (McKechnie Section 2)

Recorded and illustrated by Jackson (Dictionary). who mentions one silhouette, of George III, formerly owned by Sir Henry Sutcliffe Smith and now in the Royal Collection. Fowler's only known silhouette, this is signed and dated 1808. It is a copv of a print, engraved and published by William Wellings (q.v.), of a silhouette by Wellings himself. The artist may have been the William Fowler, listed by Graves, who exhibited two portraits in Suffolk Street, London, in 1827.

Unfortunately, the only copy of Wellings's original print that I have seen shows little detail, as the paper on which it is printed is dark with age. Fowler's profile, copied from a print published twelve years earlier, shows the King's hair and clothes in more detail. The surround (an oval of flowers and foliage, shown tied beneath with ribbons) is faithfullv, though not very skilfully, copied. Mrs Peggy Hickman owns one of the original profiles (there were probably several copies) of the King by Wellings, on which these prints were based. Fowler has added the sash of the Garter, and inscribed around it in two concentric circles (in a laborious script) the lines at the foot of Wellings's profile (in the inner circle) and a prayer (in the outer circle). The former text reads as follows:

May he live

Longer than I have time to tell his years

Ever belov'd and loving may his rule be!

And when old time shall lead him to His end,

Goodness and he fill up one monument.

The prayer is the Collect for the eighth Sunday after Trinity: '0 God, whose never failing providence ordereth all things in heaven and earth, We humbly beseech thee to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for us, through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.' This piece, signed in the manner of a professional artist, might well have been ordered by a noble or even a royal personage; alternatively, Fowler may have executed it in the hope of arousing the interest of an engraver, who would publish it. The execution of the profile must have taken much time, and the placing of the inscriptions alone would have required long practice. The piece appears to have been painted in shades of black water-colour; the writing may have been added with a quill.

The signature, beneath the ribbon at the base of the oval, reads `Wm. Fowler del. & fecit 1808.'

Ill. 795