American Silhouettes © 2012

Foster Brothers, Boston

When Carrick wrote her monumental work on American silhouettes in 1928, silhouette collecting was a very big fad. Can you imagine her paying $200 for a silhouette by King? I do not know its exact equivalency in today’s terms, but that was a lot of cash to dish out for a silhouette. Granted, any silhouette cut by King is scarce; however, again, $200 for his work, even during the roaring twenties, was no bargain.

I loved hanging around a local pool-hall as a young teen. I recall this old-timer in his seventies telling me he made ten cents an hour working at a local mill. Although I am no wizard when it comes to calculus (yuck) and statistics (yuck), I am able to do basic math. Ten cents an hour multiplied by eight hours would be eighty cents for a day’s work. For this old-timer to earn $200, he had to work 250 days! When you add two days of weekend, idle time, it would be just about a year’s worth of earnings.

I really like Carrick, but she had no sense of what an average hard working person was able to make back then. If one “fooled” with stocks in the twenties, it was easy money. However, we know its history as well, speculation and borrowing (buying on margin) leading to the Great Depression. Carrick, making a very good living writing books on collectibles, and having a “paid” connection with the Magazine Antiques, and, in addition, her supportive husband working as a language professor at Dartmouth, living at a so-called “cottage” (quite a historical one at that) really had no “sense” of money (can’t afford bread? …eat cake!).

So what does Carrick have anything to do with the title of this blog, “Foster Brothers”? If you recall, I did write something about “orange chicken” about two years ago. One reader complained that the subject matter was not related to silhouettes. Perhaps it did not. I really do not remember the context of it now. If interested, I guess you can “Google” the subject: “orange chicken” and “antique silhouettes” or something close to that nature. Whether it “caches” to its appropriate link is another matter. By the way, I stopped going to that take-out Chinese restaurant. Why? One day the owner’s daughter says to me, “You’re getting fat.” I told her I owe my weight gain thanks to her orange chicken. I have yet to go back there; other places serve similar flavorful stuff. If she would have said, “You’re looking younger every time I see you” or something to that nature, I would have continued to eat there.

At any rate before I drift off the subject, these photos from Foster Brothers suggest they made many reproductions. Please pay attention to their stock of frames too. Furthermore, some of these silhouettes when framed and under glass are very difficult to tell apart from genuine ones, especially so is the one cut by William King with his “King” embossment (silhouette number 13). Under glass, the embossment seems very genuine. I saw two at different shows last year.

Another one I really had to examine closely was one by Doyle (number 25). Again, under glass it looks so real. This exact reproduction was actually sold on eBay last year for quite a sum. I also saw another at one of the major shows as a genuine example. Another very good looking ones are those by William Bache (number 30, 39, 40 and similar types). If one or more of you really believe you can buy silhouettes of George and Martha Washington, think again, unless, of course, those silhouettes were “produced” by the Fosters.

There are many reproduction silhouette frames out there too. Some of them are “cut-downs” where framers cut down a large gilt frame into small sections. They do it wonderfully. They are attractive and great for displaying silhouettes; however, those frames are what they are and worth only a fraction of genuine, period, silhouette frames.
In addition, there are those made by Foster Brothers. Age-wise, they are approaching antique status, but those frames have cheap look to them with heavy glass, and where black painted from the reverse, it looks nothing like the genuine blacking from the early 19th century.

Perhaps the commonest type of frame is the black painted paper Mache (If you want to get fancy with this term then it would be papier-mâché.) with acorn type hanger (see the frame with Lincoln in it). The easiest way to check if the frame is early 19th century or 20th century is to measure the opening. The oval opening of the 20th century frames are larger and taller, more oblong than it is oval, if that makes better sense. In addition, the brass- plated hanger is crudely made using thin base metal, tin.

One of the rarest early frames is the stamped brass, rectangular frame (Foster has “Silhouette No. 45”in it). They call it, “All metal, gilt finish – copy of an old design.” From this photo alone, it is not possible to tell apart the differences between this frame and one from the early 19th century. When it comes to something like this, one must rely on experience of having examined the genuine article.

I hope this Foster’s Brothers tidbit was helpful. Since very few of these fliers were saved (Does anyone save Wal-Mart fliers?), I thought I would share with you here. I hope to do something on identification of silhouette frames soon with lots of photos.

# posted by ME @ 8:18 AM