Farthing, William (McKechnie Section 5)

See Section Three for main entry

On Trade Label No. 2 Farthing offers `Likenesses (in Profile Shade) in a Style peculiarly striking, whereby the most forcible Animation is retained to the minute Size for setting in Rings, Bracelets, &c.' In Section Three I suggest that Farthing produced no profiles himself, but employed Henry Hervé I to this end. Hervé could paint on ivory, and may well have painted examples for jewellery settings on this surface.

Ivory pieces from the early 1800s are seldom signed, and work done by Hervé at Farthing's studio might only be identified from costume dating from c. 1804-1807 — not from c. 1807-20, when Hervé was working under his own name. (We know that Hervé painted silhouettes on glass for jewellery setting; one example, painted on glass with a buffish-pink background and framed in a locket, is mentioned in the entry on him in Section Three).