Moses Williams
Revealed Silhouette of George Washington

Revealed Silhouette of George Washington

Public Domain

Revealed Silhouette of George Washington
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Revealed Silhouette of George Washington
Dateafter 1803
PlacePhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
MediumCut wove paper and black textile
DimensionsSheet: 8 1/4 × 6 in. (21 × 15.2 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, gift of Pam Diehl
Object numberB.2021.9
Not on view

Explore Further

Department
Bayou Bend
Description


While working in Annapolis, Maryland, between 1769 and 1775, the artist Charles Willson Peale acquired a mixed-race, enslaved couple named Lucy and Scarborough Williams. It is believed they came to him as payment for a portrait commissioned by a plantation owner in the area. While enslaved by Peale, they gave birth to Moses in 1777. Peale later freed the parents, but the current law allowed children born into slavery to be kept in servitude until the age of twenty-eight. Only nine years old at the time, Moses, like many enslaved children, was forced to live with another family besides his own. Williams grew up in the Peale household, and Peale trained Moses to operate the recently invented physiognotrace. This device created silhouettes by tracing the outline of the sitter’s head directly onto a sheet of white paper.



The Peale Museum was a public museum of paintings and natural history located in Philadelphia. There, Williams, as a free black man, sold his portraits in a gallery. The paper-cutting stand quickly became a popular attraction. With the earnings, Moses Williams purchased a two-story brick house in Philadelphia, where he lived with his wife, the Peales’ white cook. Moses made this silhouette of George Washington after 1803. Peale freed Moses at the age of twenty-seven, about a year after this silhouette was cut.




Provenance[Margaret H. Canavan, Silver Spring, Maryland, 2000]; purchased by Pam Diehl, Houston; given to MFAH, 2021.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
[no inscriptions]
Beneath image, an embossed emblem of an eagle above a banner; the banner inscribed: PEALES MUSEUM [reversed]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

If you have questions about this work of art or the MFAH Online Collection please contact us.

Revealed Silhouette of a Young Woman
Moses Williams
after 1803
Wove paper
B.74.17
Revealed Silhouettes of a Man
Elhana W. Gilbert
1839
Wove paper with black ink
B.79.172
Silhouette of a Lady
c. 1830–1840
Black ink with brown and white chalk delineation on wove paper
B.69.239
Silhouette Drawing of a Young Woman
c. 1830–1835
Black ink with chalk delineation on wove wood pulp paper
B.77.19
Hollow-cut Silhouette of a Man
c. 1800–1805
Wove paper with black ink
B.74.18
Double-Sided Silhouette
Auguste Edouart
1834
Cut paper
B.74.13.A,.B
Silhouette of a Lady
c. 1800–1850
Black paper with gilt highlights
B.74.14
Silhouette of a Man
c. 1820–1830
Black paper, graphite, and gilt highlights
B.74.16
Silhouette of a Man
c. 1800–1850
Black paper with gilt highlights
B.74.15
Loves me, loves me not
Yukinori Yanagi
1991
Collage of cut electrostatic print taped on coated wove paper with black ballpoint pen
96.75.13
Untitled
Richard Diebenkorn
1972
A: Acrylic and gouache on wove paper, B: Wash with cut and pasted paper on wove paper, C: Acrylic, charcoal and cut and pasted on wove paper
94.109.A-.C