Barber, C. A, Master

Gender:
Male
Date and place of birth:
registered January - March 1840, Leamington, Warwickshire
Date and place of death:
registered April - June 1901, Holborn Union Infirmary, London
Worked:
(fl) 1848-1851
Known places of work:
"Soho Bazaar", London and Great Exhibition, Hyde Park, London
Known techniques:
Freehand cut-work
Known materials:
Paper and card
Frames:
Not recorded
Signature:
Not recorded

Introduction:

From information on the rear of a handful of works, "Master C.A. Barber" was cutting freehand silhouettes commercially from the age of 8. Laid on card mounts measuring no more than 5" x 3", all recorded compositions depict hunting, equestrian or farmyard scenes.

The reverse of 2 works are inscribed in a contemporary hand "Cut Out By C.A.Barber, Aged 8 Years, Soho Square 1848" and "C.A.Barber, Aged 10 Years, Attends Every Afternoon At Counter 440, Soho Bazaar, Soho Sq.".

Soho Bazaar was opened in 1816 by army contractor John Trotter, who had earlier rebuilt nos. 4,5 and 6 Soho Square into a warehouse. After the Napoleonic War he adapted it into a bazaar primarily for widows and daughters of army officers to sell their handiwork. Stalls and counters were hired by the day at 3 pence a foot. The venture was highly successful and described in 1843 as "still standing at the head of its class". It inspired various imitators including Oxford Street's Pantheon Bazaar.

Barber's works are competently cut, have charm, and coupling this with his young age it was probably reason enough for his efforts to be displayed at the Great Exhibition of 1851. The official catalogue records how Barber cut "...figures and landscapes out of paper with scissors, no design having been first traced...".

It's intriguing "Master" Barber had this facility, as 2022 research discovered his father was freehand cutter Charles Lewis (Louis) Barber (1797-1845), who claimed in early 1820s newspaper advertisements to cut a likeness in 10 seconds "...without the aid of a drawing or machine...".

Master C.A. Barber was born CHARLES LEWIS ALBERT BARBER in Warwickshire, in 1840. His mother was Elizabeth Hopley (1804-dec. after 1851) who married profilist and sometime painter Charles Lewis Barber in her home town of Dover in January 1822. Charles Albert's sister, Eliza Hopley Barber, was born there in December 1824.

It's worth noting Eliza became an accountant and assistant to pioneering daguerreotype photographer Antoine Claudet at the Adelaide Gallery in London's Strand sometime in the early 1840s. As her father is known to have cut silhouette profiles at the Gallery, it's entirely possible he helped secure her employment there.

It's less likely C.L. Barber taught his son the art of silhouette cutting, as according to a lengthy obituary, he appears to have resided alone in Cambridge for a year before his death in 1845, when son Charles Albert would have been under 5 years old.

2022 research discovered C.L. Barber to have been a "colourful" character. A serial bigamist, twice an insolvent debtor, he claimed, fraudulently, to have been a captain in the 15th Hussars and present at Waterloo. He also altered or added to his given names in records to accommodate his varied circumstances.

It's also a curious circumstance that as well as inheriting a modicum of his father's artistry, Charles Albert also developed a penchant as an adult to alter his own name.

In the 1851 Census, the year Charles Albert's works were displayed at the Great Exhibition, he is recorded in London as an 11-year-old "scholar". His widowed mother is described as a "Dealer in Miscellaneous Articles", which possibly suggests straitened circumstances.

Charles Albert then disappears from records until 1874, though at some earlier point he became a wood engraver. AMSTERDAM CITY ARCHIVES show him working in the city and in Brussels between June 1874 and September 1879. However, he also returned to England sometime in 1876, long enough to register his marriage to German-born Fredericke Wilhelmine Roesler, where he gives his name as Charles A.O. Barberé. His wife would give birth to 4 offspring between 1880-89.

In the 1881 Census he records his occupation as "Xylographer", a more opaque term for his craft, and probably intended to bemuse the enumerator. He gives his name as Charles A.O. Barberé, born in Warwickshire in 1840. In 1891 he records his occupation as a wood engraver and his name as Albert O'Pley Barberé!

The 1901 Census finds him a patient at the Holborn Union Infirmary (Islington) as Charles Albert Barberé, a retired 60-year-old wood engraver. It's unlikely he left the facility alive, as an Albert Barberé's death was registered in Islington between April and June 1901.

Revised 10 January 2024 (Brian Wellings)

 

 

Additional research about Master C. A Barber:

Source: McKechnie (Author of, British Silhouette Artists and their Work 1760-1860)

Barber, C. A, Master (McKechnie Section 1)

Source: Joll (Hon. Secretary of the Silhouette Collectors Club and Editor of the Club's newsletter)

Barber, C. A, Master (SCC Newsletter December 2001)
Barber, C. A, Master (SCC Newsletter November 1995)

Gallery Silhouettes

Front of silhouette, in frame, with hunting scene.Front of Silhouette, in frame, with man training a horse and dog