Silhouette of a Boy

Moses Williams was born enslaved in 1777 and held in bondage by famous portrait artist and owner of the Philadelphia Museum, Charles Willson Peale. A renowned painter, Peale deliberately chose not to train Moses in the methods of fine arts painting, instead electing to teach him silhouette cutting, a lesser art form of the period. Williams swiftly perfected the craft, showing Peale that he was exceptionally skilled and could create a high volume of silhouettes for his museum. In turn, Peale purchased a physiognotrace, a device for tracing profiles in miniature for Williams’s use. The delicate work of creating a silhouette required Williams to cut a silhouette from its center and overlay the outline above black cardstock. The majority of Williams’s customers were white museum patrons and the operation of the physiognotrace required Williams to stand closely to seated patrons and guide the device carefully to their face. Williams skillfully crafted 8,000 silhouettes per year carefully navigating the precarious lines between Black and white.