Colpoys, Timothy (McKechnie Section 1)

Known only from two bust-length silhouettes, dating from the early 1830s, in the collection of Miss Betty Bird. The address on the reverse of one of them, 'Mr Spoke's, Northton', suggests that Colpoys may have worked at Northampton, but enquiry at the City Library, Northampton, has yielded no information about him. As can be seen from the handwritten inscription which gives the address, the spelling of the artist's name is in doubt: the name may be 'Colssoys'.

Description of Colpoys' work is complicated by the fact that Miss Bird (so she informs me) bought both the silhouettes at the same time, removed them from their frames for cleaning and then replaced them, without, however, being sure which silhouette had previously been housed in the frame which bears the inscription. One silhouette, which is of a woman, is painted in a manner similar to that of J. M. Rouse, who was working at about the same time. It is almost half-length, and the sitter's fichu is painted outside the cut paper outline.

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Chinese white is used to show the decoration of this fichu; this pigment, however, was not used by Rouse on the few known examples of his work. Rouse's characteristic use of gold paint for rendering the hair and earring is paralleled here. The decoration on the comb, however, appears to have been painted in gold also, and not in gum arabic, which Rouse would normally have used for this detail.

The other profile (of a little girl) is quite different, being conspicuous for its lack of depth, although it shows the same use of both gold paint and Chinese white. Silhouettes of small children are always difficult to date, and it seems to me that this example may possibly have been taken in the 1820s, and not in the early 1830s.

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To summarize, one can only say that Colpoys certainly painted one, and possibly both, of these two silhouettes, and that any other examples which come to light might be expected to conform stylistically to the features which these two share (the use of gold paint and Chinese white) and be framed (like these two) in papier mâché

Ills. 326-328