Portrait of Edward Trego (1812-1886)

Date1834

Artist Augustus Day (active 1800-1836)

MediumWatercolor, ink, gouache, graphite, and bronze powder on wove paper

DimensionsPrimary Support: 4 3/8 x 3 7/16in. (11.1 x 8.7cm) and Framed: 8 5/8 x 7 1/8 x 1in.

Credit LineGift of Barbara and David Merten

Object number2010.300.2

DescriptionA bust-length profile portrait of a young man facing left, the body color rendered in a greenish hue with interior details added in black (watercolor or ink), white (gouache), and yellow (bronze powder?), the whole behind an églomisé mat. His hair is brushed toward his face, with a large curl or roll of hair above his ear. He wears a high-collared coat with a notched lapel, a black neck cloth, and a white shirt with an upturned collar. Vague interior details leave it unclear as to whether he wears a waistcoat (and whether it is white, gray, or yellow). Scalloped ornament appears over the top of his sleeve, defining his shoulder.

The mat consists of a black border that creates a rectangular aperture; the black is enlivened by one large and one smaller pinstripe of gilding, the larger, outer stripe having cutout corners that partially encircle pierced dots (acorn-like devices) from which three leaves extend outward.

The 1 3/8-inch 2-part frame is believed original; it consists of a splayed, mahogany-veneered outer frame with an outer bead and a liner of a stepped cyma recta molding.
Label TextAugustus Day advertised in Charleston in 1804 that he had just arrived from Philadelphia and was ready to employ his "new invented PHYSIOGNOTRACE, upon an improved plan, superior to any of the kind ever seen in America, invented by himself, for taking Profiles." Enticingly, he added that his machine was constructed so "as not to touch the face."

However, city directories reveal Day's more protracted presence in Philadelphia, where he advertised as a "carver and gilder" continuously during 1800-1806 and, erratically, during 1814-1820. (In 1801, he also appeared there as a "looking glass & picture frame maker.")

As his Charleston ad suggests, Day also created fully-detailed profile portraits, as well as shades (or silhouettes as they are better known today). Most appear to date from the 1830s, some of them painted, others hollow-cut. Some are marked "Day's Patent," some "Day Fecit," which has prompted speculation that he used the former for profiles rendered with the aid of a physiognotrace, the latter for freehand examples.

Edward Trego was the son of Mahlon Trego (1770-1849) and his wife, Rachel Briggs Trego (d. 1840) of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Census records regularly list the adult Edward as a "cabinetmaker" or "master cabinetmaker," and he is believed to have been the same Edward Trego who supplied Quaker painter Edward Hicks (1780-1849) with frames for some of his pictures.

Edward married Sarah Fenton (b. 1817) on 21 April 1836, almost two years after Day created companion profiles of him and Sarah. (For Sarah Fenton's portrait, see acc. no. 2010.300.1). Likely either Trego or Day crafted the two profiles' frames, which are original.

Silhouettists typically rendered painted profiles in the darkest, most opaque black available (India ink, when they could get it). For body color, however, Day occasionally used the greenish-gray hue shown in the Fenton and Trego examples. The color contrasts especially pleasingly with the bright yellow of the bronze powder or paint he used for some interior details and with the gilding in the eglomisé covers.

InscribedIn graphite in delicate script beneath the portrait bust is: "Day Fecit".

On the back of the primary support, in graphite in script along the lower edge, in another hand, is: "Edwd Trego/taken May 19th [or 17th?]/34".

In graphite in script on the back of the backboard is: "Edw Trego/May 17th, 1834/(written on back/of silhouette)".
MarkingsA typed label, evidently written by a dealer, detached from the silhouette and stored separately in an accompanying envelope, reads: "Augustus Day. Painted profile in [torn, missing]/hair and coat. Signed under shou[torn, missing]/in white and black. Original mah[torn, missing]/inner frame (glass). Written on b[torn, missing]/of a pair of betrothal profiles."
ProvenanceSold at an unidentified auction in Philadelphia, Pa., in or before 1922; bought there by Alice Van Leer Carrick; unidentified owner(s); to Barbara and David Merten, who were CWF's donors