Frank Johnson, Leader of the Brass Band of the 128th Regiment in Saratoga, with his wife, Helen. Artist: Auguste Edouart (French, 1789-1861). Dimensions: Sheet: 11 5/16 × 9 5/16 in. (28.8 × 23.6 cm). Date: 1842-44.Silhouettes must have first appeared in England in about 1700, when William and Mary reportedly had their profiles done. By the 1720s, silhouettes--or shades as they were known in Great Britain--had become an established novelty, and by the end of the century their popularity had spread to France. By the end of the eighteenth century, a few French silhouettists had introduced profiles to the United States; however, it was not until the summer of 1839 that Auguste Edouart, the most prolific silhouettist ever to work in the United States, arrived in New York. Driven from France by hard times under Napoleon, Edouart first immigrated to England in 1815, where he worked as a French teacher and made portraits of animals in wax. In 1825, he cut his first silhouette, supposedly at