Spence, John (McKechnie Section 1)

A silhouette of a woman exists, apparently taken in c. 1784 but manifestly not the work of any artist who is known to have worked in this style at that time. The wooden backing of the frame has been inscribed with the words, 'I. Spence, Chester'. It has been suggested that this was the name of the frame-maker. This is a plausible theory, but could only be proved by the discovery of a silhouette by another artist, in a frame also inscribed 'I. Spence'. The Grosvenor Museum, Chester, however, has no record of any artist or frame-maker of this name who worked during the mid-1780s.

There seems to be no way of establishing whether I. Spence was an ancestor of W. S. Spence (q.v.), who was working in Shrewsbury in 1824.

The profile in question is certainly very finely cut. The bust-line terminates in a sharp point at the back of the profile, followed by a deep concavity which reaches almost to the front. The frills on the front of the sitter's dress are arranged in a neat scalloped formation; the ribbons on the hat, and the back of the hair, are cleverly shown. Compared, for instance, with some of the hollow-cut work of Mrs Harrington, the profile occupies relatively a good deal of space on the oval piece of paper on which it has been stuck.

The profile is framed in the small oval frame of ebonised wood, with 'crenellated' gilt inner surround, which was used for the work of many artists of the 1770s and early 1780s.

Ills. 594, 595