This is the first major book about silhouettes since 1978.  The first review of the book says the book is "Beautiful and overflowing with charming illustrations, Rutherford’s book proves full of substance."  The book has arrived and it is visually stunning book with 255 pages packed with beautiful color photographs of silhouettes from museums and private collections and good information about history, techniques, artists, and more.  You don't want to miss this beautiful book!

List price is $65 but I'm offering this book to my faithful readers for $45 plus USPS Priority Shipping $15

Shades of our Ancestors, by Alice Van Leer Carrick (1928)

One of my favorite books, a great read and a wonderful place to learn about American silhouettes and silhouette artists.  Great reference material, lots of good black & white illustrations (plus one beautiful color frontpiece), and the stories will make you fall in love with American silhouettists.  This is a very good copy with a good strong spine.  The cover (which you see at the left) has losses to the front cover silhouette.  It has expected yellowing of the pages and corner bumps to the cover.  Inside front cover pages have pencil markings of past prices and a stamp of a previous antique store owner.  No markings on the pages that I can find.  1st edition.

(#5236)   $45

British Silhouette Artists and their Work, by Sue McKechnie (1978)

This is the Bible of silhouette research....the seminal work....whatever other superlatives can be attached to a reference book....  Ms. McKechnie devoted her adult life to the study of antique silhouettes.  This comprehensive book is 799 pages of information and tons of images (it weighs a ton, too).  It catalogs every trade label and signature known and recorded at the time of its publication.  It discusses individual artists, the history of silhouettes, frames, jewelry, and has a large chapter detailing costumes of the periods (this is my best source for dating silhouettes and portraits).  Lucky for us, Ms. McKechnie even devoted a chapter to artists working in America!  If you are building a collection of silhouettes, or selling or appraising silhouettes, you've gotta have this book!  I apologize in advance for the price.  This book as gotten extremely hard to find.  I look for months for copies that I can offer at what I finally had to decide was a "reasonable" rate.  Believe me, if you are serious about silhouettes, this will be your go-to book.  Please also note that the book weighs more than 8 pounds and will be costly to ship....but it is really, really worth it! 

This is an ex-library copy with a clear mylar cover over the original dust jacket.  The dust jacket is in good condition but the mylar cover has a 2" x 3/4" tear on the back.  The mylar cover also has some soiling along the upper left side of the cover at the spine.  The dust jacket, itself, has a dent along the spine.  The book is in excellent condition and appears to have never been checked out from the Liverpool library from which it came and little, if ever, read.  Spine is tight, pages all good and tight.  There is soiling at the edge papers, especially at the lower right edge.  Inside the front cover is the library's stamps and check-out paper.  This is a very good to excellent copy of a monumental book.

(#5095)     $365

Silhouettes in America, 1790-1840: A Collector's Guide, by Blume J. Rifken (1987)

Another of my favorite reference books, this little book includes a very important chapter on dating silhouette from clothing.  You'll pull it out again and again for that chapter!  It's packed with illustrations of great American silhouettes.  Ms. Rifken seems to lean a bit towards the folky silhouettes (which I love) and she illustrates what I think are some of the most creative silhouettes made.  This is an ex-library copy in good condition with a slight crease to the covers, labels on the front and some scuffing to the edges.  The image to the left is of the actual copy offered.  This is a hard to find book.

(#5160)    $45

If you are a collector of Edouart or just love his work, this book is a must for you.  Mrs. Jackson's ground-breaking work after she uncovered his rescued folios and cataloged everyone that she had possession of.  This is the most complete work on Edouart (other than, perhaps the treatise he wrote himself).  It contains detailed information about Edouart's life, his work, his recordkeeping (the duplicate folios and detailed receipt books), and the most complete list of Edouart's sitters that is currently available.  It is filled with approximately 230 black & white images showcasing his work.  I refer to this book every time I acquire another Edouart.  I want to see whether that sitter was recorded in the rescued folios (and remember that some were never rescued and some turned up after Mrs. Jackson published this book).  This book has become harder and harder to find.  This copy has clean and unworn green cloth boards, with gilt spine titles and a circular silhouette on front (some loss to the white edge). Top edges gilt, other edges un-trimmed. A small blank bookplate on front pastedown (with no name). First and last pages slightly browned, otherwise a Fine copy, with no inscriptions or foxing.  Please note that the photo to the left is a stock photo and not of this copy.  The copy offered has some loss to the circular white silhouette background.  Please ask me for a photo of this particular copy of some loss on the silhouette might bother you.  I want you to know exactly what you are buying.

(#5219)    $275

As those of you who have read my biographies page about Edouart know, Augustin Edouart kept a duplicate of every silhouette that he every cut, placed them in folios with sitters names and dates written below each silhouette and, as Mrs. F. Nevill Jackson discovered in the early years of the 20th century, inscribed the back of each figure with the name and date of the sitter.  He used these duplicate folios for his own records and to use as marketing for his profession.  In 1849, Edouart boarded a ship to return to England with all of his folios.  The ship sank off the Bay of Guernsey and only some of his folios were recovered from the sea floor.  He gifted all of the folios that were returned to him to the Lukis family who cared for him after the shipwreck.  After Mrs. Jackson purchased all of the folios that were given to the Lukis family, a few continued to surface (apparently "salvaged" by the salvagers who claimed to turn over the lost goods to the proper owners).  One such folio surfaced in France and was donated to the Friends' Library, Friends House, London, England in 1969.  That folio, artist at that time unknown, eventually made it to the Friends Historical Library in Swathmore, Pennsylvania who showed it to the Laughon sisters.  The Laughons immediately recognized the folios as Edouart's work.  They wrote this book which has good information about Edouart, the Quakers, and illustrates every silhouette still within the folio after rescue from the ocean floor.  This is a fascinating and important book.  This copy is in excellent, unmarked condition.  The dust jacket is in great condition with a minor amount of wear and a few tiny edge tears.  The image that you see to the left is not the copy being offered today.  This copy is not ex-library, as the image to the left is.  There are no labels on this book.  A great copy of a fun book.

(#5162)     $35

This book chronicles the only known folio by Edouart that includes lithograph and watercolor backgrounds.  The folio appears to be Edouart's duplicate work, but this folio does not appear to have been water damaged (or to have gone down with the ship in 1849).  The folio first appeared in 1923 when it was sold to an individual collection in New York.  The company selling the folio is said to have acquired it in Paris.  The folio contained 91 pages of silhouettes, using 25 different lithographed backgrounds.  It contains the most important Americans that he cut, including 4 presidents, 5 Supreme Court justices, 6 state governors, 6 college presidents, 18 mays and at least 29 physicians.  It is thought that this unique folio was used to preserve Edouart's personal records and as a marketing took to show a prospective sitters the vast array of prominent sitters he had cut as well as examples of lithograph and watercolor backgrounds from which they could choose.  Andrew Oliver put together this beautiful book illustrating every silhouette within the folio and giving short biographies of the important Americans depicted in its pages.  This copy of the book is in excellent condition with two tears to the dust jacket.  The tears are repaired from the inside with archival linen tape, but the tear to the back of the dust jacket was a little accordianed and I could not straighten it out completely during the repair.  However, it looks good and its a really stunning book.

(#5159)     $50

I've read this book cover to cover, several times.  I find it fascinating and thorough in its information about portrait miniatures and mourning miniatures in America.  The book is only 7" x 5" in outside dimensions but is packed with 376 pages of text and 189 illustrations (166 of them in glorious color).  The text is well-written and authoritative and the color images are plentiful, beautiful and of great use for comparisons.  This is a wonderful reference book and a fun read.  Excellent copy with with just a bit of bumps to the dust cover (you can really barely see).  Like new condition.

(#5231)    $50

A Loving Likeness American Folk Portraits of the Nineteenth Century, by Marna Anderson (1992).

This is one of my favorite books on folk portraits!  This book represents the exhibit catalog of the 1992 exhibit of Raymond & Susan Egan's folk art collection at The Gallery at Bristol-Myers Squibb.  It includes beautiful photographs of portraits and silhouettes of some of the most important American folk portrait artists of the 19th century.  Brief biographical information is given for known artists within the collection as well as characteristics which help identify of the artist's work.  The book is thin, but it has 60 information-packed pages and all of the many photos are in color.  You will find yourself going back to this book over and over again for reference.  If you collect folk portraits, you need this book! 

This is a very good copy with a little scuffing to the covers and a slight crease in the top quarter of the back cover.  Other than the minor cover scuffs, the book is in great condition with no marks to any pages.  It does not have the supplement.  Good copies of this book are getting increasingly hard to find and increasingly expensive.  It's a great reference book!

(#4316)     $70

This is a near mint copy of the book with the eight page, full color supplement.  Only condition issue is minor edge/handling wear.  Unmarked interior.  This book is becoming increasingly hard to find.  It is nearly impossible to find any copy with the supplement, which is worth the extra money.

(#4845)    $100

This is another of my favorite books on folk portraits from the museum which, in my opinion, has the largest and most complete folk art collection in the country.  A real go-to reference book with wonderful illustrations of portraits by the most important American folk portraitists.  I use this book at least weekly in my research.  It has 97 color and 240 black & white illustrations.  The book reads like a Who's Who of early American folk art and also includes lots of images and details of work by unidentified artists.  This is a must-have.

This copy is in very good to excellent condition.  Dust cover is excellent with a mylar covering (the back flap has a crease).  Spine is good and tight, no marking on the pages that I can find.  A previous owner's name is written on the inside front cover page and brief annotations written on the inside back cover page.  Pages have slight yellowing.  Otherwise, it looks like a unused copy, carefully shelved.

(#5253)    $50

This is a near mint copy of a beautiful and very useful reference book.  This great book is divided by centuries and has great color illustrations and biographical essays covering the lives the most important American folk artists of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, such as John Brewster, Jr., Rufus Hathaway, Joseph H. Davis, James Sanford Ellsworth, Ammi Phillips, Rufus Porter, and Horace Pippin to name just a few of the 37 chronicled artists.   The 150 color illustrations include American folk masterpieces that were included in a major exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.  The book also includes additional black & white illustrations of great paintings.  This is an indispensable reference and pictorial source for everyone who loves American folk art.

This is a very nice copy, looks like it has never been read.  Good tight spine, no markings that I can find inside.  The dust jacket is in really good condition except for a long scratch and small scrape at about 9 o'clock

(#5002)     $25

Wonderful reference book of American folk painting of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.  Bishop describes and illustrates two broad categories of folk painting:  "pictures that recorded people, places, and time, and paintings that decorated essentially utiltarian objects, such as signs, fireboards, mantels, room ends, floors and floor carpets, windowshades, walls, ceilings, and furniture."  This seminal book covers those two broad categories with wonderfully written text and more than 400 illustrations (70 in color).  Chapters are split into geographical areas to help you identify trends that carried through the centuries in those areas.  This is a wonderful book that I go to often in my research.  It covers well-known and little-known artists.  You'll love having it in your library.

This is a very good copy of the book with no markings on the pages and a good tight spine.  The dust jacket is in good condition with scraping on the spine (of the dust jacket, not the book) and small tears and bends along the top and bottom edges.

(#5004)    $25

The Flowering of American Folk Art (1776-1876), Jean Lipman & Alice Winchester (1974).

This is a landmark book of American folk art illustrating more than 400 outstanding examples of folk art produced during the period of its finest flowering. The objects shown in this book were selected from more than 10,000 examples owned by institutions, collectors, and dealers. This book documents the first major exhibition to survey the entire range of American folk art. Four major categories of works are represented: pictures that are painted, drawn, and stitched; sculpture; architectural decoration; and decorated household objects. Of the 400 illustrations, 100 are in color. Additionally, there are brief essays on each type of object; detailed captions for each work; biographical notes on the artist; and a selected bibliography.  This is a go-to reference book for anyone who collects American folk art.

This copy is on fine condition a very good dust jacket.  No markings on the pages, tight binding, just a touch of expected yellowing to the pages, especially at the edges.  The dust jacket has tears at the binding edges (the dust jacket is not bound, I'm trying to say, the part of the dust jacket that covers the book binding).

(#5260)     $25

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