Given the limitations of cut paper portraiture, it is always amazing how much fashion detail and movement that Augustin Edouart was able to capture in his figure studies. Cut in Edinburgh in 1831, this conversation piece shows Mrs Campbell interrupting her husband’s reading to pass him a newly-arrived letter. She wears an ankle-length dress with Donna Maria sleeves, her hair in an Apollo knot secured with a large comb. Mr Campbell has a good head of curls and wears a frock-coat and black stock.The cut silhouettes are laid on a sepia watercolour wash background showing a draped view of a loch with distant hills. Signed bottom left ‘Augn Edouart, fecit, 1831'', the silhouette resides in the original bird’s eye maple veneer frame (small loss of veneer to one corner) with a now tarnished gilt slip. Edouart was fussy about how his work was presented so much so that he always travelled with a supply of his preferred maple frames. The sitters’ names are inscribed on the reverse of the sil...