The Rachel Creefield silhouette (c. 1825) is believed to be the earliest known hollow-cut

silhouette A silhouette ( , ) is the image of a person, animal, object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single colour, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject. The interior of a silhouette is featureless, and the silhou ...

of an African-American woman. It is held in the collection of the Smithsonian. Rachel Creefield was employed by the Dickey family of

Chester County Chester County may refer to: * Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States * Chester County, South Carolina, United States * Chester County, Tennessee, United States * Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West En ...

, Pennsylvania. The silhouette is one of six likely created at the

Peale Museum The Peale, located in Baltimore, Maryland, is Baltimore's Community Museum. Its mission is to evolve the role of museums in society by providing local creators and storytellers with the space and support the need to realize a complete and accessi ...

of family members of Creefield's employers, including John Miller Dickey. Creefield is believed to have been a domestic servant in the household of Ebenezer Dickey. The silhouette is "cut from off-white

wove paper Wove paper is a type of paper first created centuries ago in the Orient, and subsequently introduced to England, Europe and the American colonies in the mid-eighteenth century. Hand-made wove paper was first produced by using a wooden mould that ...

and backed with black paper (with a positive image of the bust transferred in brown onto the backing sheet)." The work measures approximately by .

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Further reading