Four Silhouettes

Character, read from a shadow.

Work: from Essays on Physiognomy, volume II
Maker: Johann Kaspar Lavater, engraved under Thomas Holloway
Date: 1789–1798
Held by: Published London, 1789–1798 · Wellcome Collection · via Wikimedia Commons

Format

The full-resolution scan, colour-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.

Size

$29.00

The story

Four silhouettes of men in oval frames, from the second volume of Lavater's Essays on Physiognomy as translated by Henry Hunter and illustrated, the title page says, with more than eight hundred engravings executed by or under the inspection of Thomas Holloway. Lavater prized the silhouette above every other likeness because it could not flatter: the profile alone, cast as a shadow, was the truest record of a face. Black on cream, four men in a grid. Wellcome Collection, published on Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 4.0.

See it on your wall

The plate, in the room it was made for

Four Silhouettes, printed large and framed — in the consulting room, the study, the library. Every edition ships ready to become the piece the room is built around.

About this reproduction

A reproduction of from Essays on Physiognomy, volume II — Johann Kaspar Lavater, engraved under Thomas Holloway, 1789–1798 — from the copy held by Published London, 1789–1798 · Wellcome Collection · via Wikimedia Commons. The source. The work is centuries out of copyright and in the public domain.
Printed faithful to that source scan. We do not re-colour it, complete it, or interpret it; the plate you receive is the plate as it survives.
Printed to order on EMA matte art paper, 200gsm. Framed editions sit in a box frame under acrylic, with no mount.
Colour-managed to the source; the tone of the paper and the ink is the engraver’s, not ours.
Ships in 5–10 business days.
If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.

Why our plates cost more than a poster: a poster is a mass run on wood-pulp stock, colour-corrected to whatever flattered the press that day. This is one sheet, pulled for you, at a size where the engraver’s hand is visible — the linework, the tonal work, the lettering — on a matte sheet that shows every line without glare.

From the same hand