Price :
$529.00
Antique Silhouette : A fine Georgian bronzed portrait of a Gentleman - C. early 19thC
An attractive and fine early 19th century Georgian bronzed Silhouette of a gentleman in More »
Antique Silhouette : A fine Georgian bronzed portrait of a Gentleman - C. early 19thC
An attractive and fine early 19th century Georgian bronzed Silhouette of a gentleman in original maple frame having framers listing on back for William Brooks (a number of his frames in famous Collections)
Circa: 1820 - 1835
Good Antique Condition - please see images - light reflections in images (including close up where you can see the camera lens reflected)
7 inches (18cm) height X 6 inches (15.5cm) width approx
Portrait; 4.5 inches (11.5cm) height X 3.5 inches (9cm) width approx
From a small private Collection fresh to the market
Please scroll down for high resolution images
*William Brooks 1828-1865, W. Brooks & Son 1866-1904. At 19 Little Wild St, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London 1828-1831, 14 Great Queen St, Lincoln’s Inn Fields 1831-1904. Carvers and gilders, picture frame and looking glass makers, printsellers.
William Brooks (c.1799-1871 or later) was in business by the late 1820s. As William Brooks, picture framemaker, he took out insurance at 19 Little Wild St with the Sun Fire Office in 1828, and then as picture framemaker and dealer in pictures and prints, and as carver, gilder and picture framemaker, at 14 Great Queen St in 1831 and 1835 (London Metropolitan Archives, Sun Fire Office policy registers, vols 516, 528, 545). He was a customer of the composition ornament maker, George Jackson & Sons (qv), 1836-42 (see Jackson account book, V&A Archive of Art and Design, AAD/2012/1/2/3). He was declared bankrupt in 1848 (London Gazette 14 November 1848).
In the 1851 census Brooks was listed as a picture framemaker, age 52, employing four men, in 1861 as a carver and gilder with a son, William Elliott Brooks (c.1833-1914), age 28, picture framemaker, and in 1871 again as a carver and gilder. In 1862 the business was listed in trade directories as carver, gilder, composition ornament, fancy wood, glass and picture framemaker. William Brooks received an appointment as a carver and gilder to Queen Victoria in 1863, an appointment which was regranted to his son, William Elliott Brooks, trading as W. Brooks & Son, in 1884 (National Archives, LC 5/244 p.225, 5/246 p.27). The business was listed in 1884 as carvers and gilders to the Queen and the Prince of Wales and in 1903 Brooks & Son advertised as ‘Carvers and Gilders to the King… Established 80 Years’, offering ‘Frames to Artists’ Designs. Plastic work out of gelatine moulds. Wood moulding to any pattern. Gilding and colour work.’ (The Year’s Art 1903). In the 1901 census William E. Brooks was listed as a picture framemaker, age 68, at 13 & 14 Great Queen St, and it was presumably on his retirement that the business closed in about 1904. He died in 1914, leaving effects worth only £15.
The business was extensively employed by Queen Victoria, for many years and certainly 1865-85 (Joy 1969 p.684). It supplied ‘Lawrence’ frames in 1865 and an ‘Alhambra gold frame’ in 1868 (National Archives, PP2/98, 9474 and PP2/125, 13375). Many works framed by Brooks are identified in the catalogue of Victorian pictures in the Royal Collection (Millar 1992). These include Scottish landscapes by August Becker, framed in gold ‘Lawrence’ frames in 1865 (nos 151-3, 158), portraits of dogs by Thomas Musgrove Joy of 1843-5 (nos 352, 354-5, 357-8), portraits by George Koberwein, 1873 (nos 386, 389), animal portraits by George Morley, 1837, 1841 (nos 503, 508-10), John Partridge's Queen Victoria, 1840 (no.532), portraits by James Sant, 1872 (nos 603, 605-6), portraits by Rudolph Swoboda, 1888-1900 (nos 667-72, 674, 676, 729, 737, 739, 743, 745, 747-9, 751, 753-6) and Franz Xaver Winterhalter's Louisa Duchess of Manchester, 1859 (no.925). « Less
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