2 original Wallace Nutting Silhouettes 1927

In 1925 Ernest John Donnelly began working for Nutting and, as he learned the ropes of his business, he gained the confidence of Wallace Nutting. And as it turned out, in addition to being skilled in bookkeeping and office management skills, Donnelly was a skilled artist as well. It's unknown whether Nutting or Donnelly first suggested the idea but by 1927 Nutting decided to market a series of silhouettes drawn by Ernest John Donnelly.

These silhouettes seemed to be a perfect business proposal because not only were silhouettes becoming extremely popular with the American public, they could be machine-produced without the added labor expense associated with hand-coloring photographs.

The silhouette production process was fairly simple. Ernest John Donnelly would draw the original silhouette in pen and ink. Once approved by Wallace Nutting, Donnelly's original pen & ink drawing would then be machine re-produced, with literally several thousand of each silhouette being printed. To further keep costs down these silhouettes were only framed as they were sold to the public or through their dealers. Hence, literally thousands of silhouettes remained unframed in inventory until finally sold.

So, that's the story!