Whenever I have my studio lights set up I try to take some photos of books from my bookshelves at home along with whatever I’m photographing for work. I am a huge fan of sharing books on Flickr, but I thought it would be fun to share them here, too. I’ll try to do this as often as I can. —RG
I first bought Auguste Edouart’s Silhouettes of Eminent Americans for my friend Kate Wolkoff because of her interest in silhouettes (see her portfolio titled “Nocturne”), but then I loved it so much I went out and found a copy for myself.
Edouart was one of the great silhouettists of the 19th Century. He arrived in New York from France in 1838 and began travelling to many towns up and down the East Coast cutting silhouettes, including the affluent community of Saratoga Springs. Whenever he was commissioned to make a silhouette, he in fact cut two, one for his client and one for himself. By the time he decided to return to France in 1849, he had amassed a collection of nearly 10,000. Edouart left because of the advent of the daguerreotype left his business struggling, so he loaded all his portfolio cases on a boat bound for France with the intention of assembling a promotional monograph upon his arrival. It was not meant to be: the boat was shipwrecked, and only 16 of Edouart’s 50 cases were recovered. The National Portrait Gallery has assembled the surviving 348 silhouettes into this fine book, which is as remarkable for its colorful stories as it is for its colorless illustrations.
