Portrait Silhouettes

Example of a Silhouette

Silhouettes are small paintings depicting human profiles. They can vary and are sometimes also for pets such as cats or dogs. They are traditionally made from special thin cardboard glued on to a frame. They can be painted or drawn too, but these are much less common. The term 'silhouette' comes from Etienne de Silhouette, a French finance minister. He wasn't appreciated by the public especially by the richer people because he was forced to impose severe economic demands during the Seven Years' War. He enjoyed cutting out portraits from paper in his free time, and now, every thing done cheaply or any profile portraits cut from paper are referred to being 'À la Silhouette' ('the silhouette way').
Silhouettes are made by artists using scissors, a model, glue, and special silhouette paper (sheet of paper with one side black and the other side white). Trained artists can look at a person and cut out their silhouette within minutes. This is called freehand. A long time ago, silhouettes were for the poorer people to have some remembrance of their loved ones, because silhouettes were much cheaper than miniatures. Now, with photographs available, the silhouette artists are few. These few who exist can be hired for special occasions, such as parties, weddings, carnivals, attraction parks, etc.
Here is a video of a man cutting out the silhouette of a fidgety little girl in real time.

Video from Spitballing.
Image from here.

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