Moses Williams (artist)

Growing up in the Peale household, Williams received training in areas such as taxidermy, object display, and silhouette-making in order to work at Peale's Philadelphia Museum.^[1] With Rembrandt Peale and sculptor William Rush, Williams probably worked on the museum's famous mastodon exhibit.^[2] Enslaved, he was not taught the "higher art" of painting.^[1]

After showing skill at silhouette-making, Williams was supplied with a physiognotrace machine to make silhouettes. He continued to work at Peale's museum as a freedman and professional silhouette artist, making black-and-white paper silhouettes for museum visitors.^[1] He produced more than 8,000 silhouettes during his first year working at Peale's museum.^[3] He earned 6 to 8 cents for every silhouette he cut.^[4] He also created silhouettes of the Peale family, including Charles Willson Peale and his wife, Elizabeth.^[5] Williams' silhouettes were stamped simply "Museum," so his legacy received scant scholarly attention until the 1990s.^[6]

With the money he earned making silhouettes, Williams purchased his freedom one year in advance of his 28th birthday and purchased a two-story brick house on 10 Sterling Alley in Philadelphia, becoming one of the few African Americans to own property in Philadelphia. He also married Maria (surname unknown), a white woman who had worked as Peale's cook. He had at least four children.^[1][6]

By 1823, silhouette-cutting as a profession was in decline, and Williams had to sell his house.^[1] According to the Author's Note in The Poison Place, a novel about Moses Williams, he was listed in city directories as a profile cutter until 1833.^[7] There is no scholarly consensus on his exact date of death, with estimates ranging from 1825 to 1833, though the probability lies with the latter date.

Williams' silhouettes can be found in the collections of several institutions, including the following:

• Philadelphia Museum of Art^[8]
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston^[9]
• Library Company of Philadelphia^[10]