Silhouette Photography

The term silhouette derives from the name of Etienne de Silhouette, a French finance minister who, in 1759, was forced by France's credit crisis during the Seven Years War to impose severe economic demands upon the French people, particularly the wealthy. Because de Silhouette was said to enjoy making cut paper portraits, his name became eponymous with these portraits and with anything done or made cheaply.. Prior to the advent of photography, silhouette profiles cut from black card were the cheapest way of recording a person's appearance.
The family name Silhouette is a French form of a Basque surname, Zuloeta; Arnaud de Silhouette, Etienne's father, was from Biarritz in the French Basque Country; this surname, whose Standard Basque or Batua form is Zuloeta, contains the suffix -eta "abundance of" and zilho, Batua zulo, "hole" (possibly here meaning "cave of bats").