Stooke, James (McKechnie Section 3)

Recorded by Jackson (Dictionary), Stooke was a Bristol artist, described as a portrait painter in the indenture of his son’s apprenticeship. We know that his younger son James was apprenticed on 30 January 1838 to Francis Freeman Phillips, coach builder, and to his wife Harriet, for a period of seven years. From this information we can deduce that the profilist was born within a few years of 1800. His eider son was named John, and he had two daughters, Emma and Sarah. Another relation was one ‘Great-aunt Elizabeth’.

There are a number of silhouettes by Stooke in the Bristol Art Gallery, none of which, however, suggest that he would have possessed much talent as a portrait painter. One of these (Mr and Mrs Stooke; illustrated) presumably represents the profilist himself 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 ‘Barbican’, 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 lines 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