Hubard Gallery Silhouette Broadside, an employer of S. T. Gill by [Gill, S.T.] - 1830

London: H. Holder Printer, George Lane, 1830. The Hubard Gallery (1822 to ca. 1845) was the namesake of William James Hubard (1807 - 1862), a young British prodigy with great talent in cutting likenesses out of black paper, who by age fifteen was commissioned to cut the silhouettes of the Duchess of Kent. His talent was exploited in Britain by a neighbor named Smith; Smith took Hubard to Boston in the mid 1820s, and Hubard eventually struck out on his own.

Smith continued with other silhouette artists representing the Gallery. There is no complete list of artists employed by the Hubard Gallery, but the noted artist Samuel Thomas Gill (Australia), the Irish profilist W. G. Wall, and E. G. A. Norman (Australia) are known to have worked with the Gallery in Dublin in the early 1840s.

Broadside with full length wood block silhouette of man in top hat and tails, holding a cane or shillelagh in his right hand, advertising the silhouette work of the Hubard Gallery.

Below the wood block silhouette text describes the Gallery's London stay: "Johnny Milburn, A Few Days Longer, at Mr. London's, Hairdresser, High Street. Extraordinary press of Business, during the last week, at the Hubard Gallery, to obtain Likenesses in the peculiar and forcible Style of the Artists, will oblige them to remain a Few Days Longer". The silhouette is indeed peculiar and forcible, with the subject a bit rumpled and short in stature, but trying to appear the gentleman.

Further text provides the prices for a likeness with highly finished drapery at two shillings six pence; or in a neat frame with glass, one shilling. Some brown toning perhaps from glue, almost the entire broadside. 3 1/2 x 9 3/4", in a black wood frame & glass.