It is generally acknowledged that the best know, most successful and greatest profilist was John Miers (I756-I82I).

 This fine artist sometimes painted on card but his most beautiful profiles are those on plaster-all black with details of hair, muslins and veils touched in by black thinned to smoky diaphanous gray. He possessed a quite uncanny skill in obtaining an excellent likeness of his subject.

Miers was a Leeds man. He gained early recognition by his beautiful work and after having been in that town from 1781 to 1783 toured Newcastle, Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh; and then in 1788, opened a studio at 162 The Strand. In 1791 moved to No 111and remained there until his death