Mackenzie, Laura Jemima Muir (McKechnie Section 1)

Recorded by Coke (The Art of Silhouette), who had seen an album of silhouettes owned at the time by the Hon. Miss Frances Talbot, of whom Laura Mackenzie was a kinswoman. Coke illustrates a silhouette. Also recorded by Jackson (Dictionary) who gives the date 1806 and mentions that the artist died in 1828 and was buried at ‘Dale Vine’ vault, Dunkeld. I have seen the second Christian name, Jemima (not recorded by Jackson) on a signed silhouette by the artist, which confirms that she was the third daughter of Sir Alexander Muir Mackenzie, of Delvine, Perthshire, who was raised to the baronetcy in 1803 (Burke's Peerage). Her mother was Jane, the eldest daughter of Sir Robert Murray, Baronet, who was married in 1787 to Sir Alexander, who had previously borne only the surname Muir but now assumed the additional name Mackenzie on succeeding to the estates of a great-uncle, John Mackenzie of Delvine. (Jackson's reference to ‘Dale Vine’ appears to have been wrongly copied from ‘Delvine’.) The date of Laura Mackenzie’s birth is not given in Burke, but an approximate date in the early 1790s may be assumed. She produced much of her work in her teens (if Jackson had seen an example dated 1806, then Laura would have begun cutting silhouettes at the age of about fifteen) and she appears to have died before reaching the age of forty.

Laura Mackenzie cut mainly group silhouettes. The album described by Coke contained a number of examples, predominantly of domestic scenes, such as babies being bathed, children playing cards, and older members of a family playing chess. It seems that these groups represented the families of the artist’s friends and relations. There are several groups on each page. It is doubtful if these pieces were ever printed (as were examples by Barbara Anne Townshend. q.v.), but some appear to have been cut on separate sheets and distributed, for some examples can be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and I have seen more than one hanging, framed, on the walls of country houses which have been lived in by the same family for generations.

Most of the work appears to date from the first ten or fifteen years of the nineteenth century. The figure of Cupid appears on many of the pictures, as, for instance, on the chair of a girl writing to her lover, or burning quantities of hearts in a cauldron. Trees seem to have been particularly well cut. One example shows a group of a mother, probably a nurse, and four children. The mother sits sewing by candlelight; one child is occupied with a dog, another with a bird in a cage. Several tables are shown; the fringed effect probably indicates a table-cloth.

Some of the pieces are cut from blackened paper, placed against a white background; others are cut from white paper, placed against a Wedgwood blue background, thus resembling, in effect, contemporary Wedgwood plaques. Each group is cut from a single piece of paper; in most cases a broad strip has been left at the foot, as a base.

Laura Mackenzie’s groups are signed (on the reverse or near the base on the front), either ‘L. M. Mackenzie’ or ‘Laura Jemima Muir Mackenzie’.

Ill. 527