Gordon, A. (McKechnie Section 3)

Recorded by Jackson (Dictionary) on account of a silhouette, probably one of a pair of silhouettes of a husband and his wife painted at Taunton on 14 February 1814. This example bore on the reverse the inscription 'Mr. Ware, Exd. by A. Gordon, Taunton Feb. 14th., 1814'. Though this silhouette was painted on card, the identical inscription appears on a silhouette of a woman painted on glass. This is in my collection and is illustrated. Presumably Gordon painted silhouettes of both Mr and Mrs Ware; these may have been removed from their frames for cleaning (and the pieces of backing, bearing the inscriptions, reversed when they were replaced in their frames) since Jackson saw the silhouette which she has recorded.

One would have expected both profiles to have been painted on similar, rather than on different, surfaces. If the profile recorded by Jackson was indeed painted on card, then Gordon must have worked as a painter both on card and on glass. I have placed the entry on Gordon in this Section because the only silhouette by him which I have seen is on glass. The style of this profile is individual, and not similar to that of any of the better known painters on glass of the early nineteenth century. It is painted on a large flat glass, and is based on a marked fingerprinted background. The glass is backed by faded white card, sufficiently distant from the glass for a shadow to be thrown on it. The sitter's dress is drawn in thick black strokes over the fingerprinting, a few finer brushstrokes being added to indicate smaller folds of the material of the cap and dress. The face is in dead black, as is the neckband bearing the fashionable ruff. The sitter's costume conforms with the date on the inscription, even allowing for the usual delay in the adoption of new fashions by women. The sitter's eyelash is only slightly defined. The bust-line finish is unusual, the double loop at the base of the curve not being coincident with the termination of the arm (which is usual in a looped finish of this kind).

Ills. 8, 1055, 1066