Full-length profile silhouette of a gentleman identified in ink as “J. M. Fox.” The figure stands in a library interior—bookshelves, curtain and table—typical of the refined backgrounds used for mid-19th-century American silhouettes. At lower right the sheet bears: “Augt. Edouart fecit 1842, Philadelphia.” Edouart (French, 1789–1861) worked widely in the U.S. in the 1840s; his sitters often include prominent Philadelphia Quaker families—consistent with the Fox / Pleasants / Emlen / Rodman genealogical notes still mounted to the backs.
A prominent Philadelphia Quaker and landowner, Joseph Mickle Fox served in the Pennsylvania State Senate (1829–1830). He inherited western Pennsylvania holdings through his father Samuel Mickle Fox (1763–1808), then in 1816 purchased over 13,000 acres from the estate to manage himself. Those tracts became the nucleus of Foxburg, the family’s country seat on the Allegheny River.
Joseph married Hannah Emlen (1790–1869), from another long-established Quaker family; the nearby town of Emlenton was named in her honor as the Fox family developed the region in the mid-19th century.
Family records place Joseph as the son of Samuel Mickle Fox and Sarah (Pleasants) Fox—the same names that appear on the handwritten genealogies attached to the backs of your frames. (Archival and genealogical sources corroborate this lineage.)
The grouping includes a smaller, later copy of the same portrait (likely a late-19th/early-20th-century photographic or photolithographic reduction kept for the family album).
Why this matters
Edouart’s American-period, full-length silhouettes on printed interiors are the most collected examples of the genre. A named Philadelphia sitter with surviving family provenance is exactly what serious buyers want.
What we can say with confidence
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Large piece: period cut-paper silhouette on a printed/lithographed room setting, ink-inscribed 1842 Philadelphia; sitter identified J. M. Fox.
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Small piece: later family copy of the same image.
(If you’d like, I can examine edges under raking light to confirm cut-paper vs. entirely printed; either way the date/inscription and provenance carry the value.)
Condition (as shown)
Dimensions
Original Silhoutte : H 10.5" W 8"
Family Copy : H 8" W 6"
