Saint-Mémin, Charles B.J.F. de:

$19,000 · Offered by William Reese Company

PORTRAITS OF DISTINGUISHED AMERICANS ENGRAVED BY JULIEN FEVRET DE SAINT-MÉMIN 1770 - 1852 [box title]. An extraordinary collection of neoclassical profile portraits drawn and engraved by famed French-American portraitist Charles B.J.F. de Saint-Mémin. Forty-one prominent Americans of the Federal period are represented (there are several duplicates, see below), including such major figures as George Clinton, William Bradford, Col. William Duane, and Thomas Jefferson, who sat for the artist in 1804. All but one of the portraits are executed in Saint-Mémin's characteristic profile view and framed in a roundel. The single exception is Saint-Mémin's unusual oval-shaped engraving of Charles Willson Peale's front-view portrait of William Bradford. All of the engravings are matted and contained in a gilt morocco case.Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin was a young, aristocratic military officer when he fled France during the Revolution in 1790. In 1793 he arrived in New York with his father and soon began pursuing a career in the arts. Applying early training he had received in drawing and an eye for precision, Saint-Mémin quickly taught himself the techniques of engraving and printing, and began producing plans and landscapes of New York. In 1796 he co-founded a business creating profile portraits with the aid of a physiognotrace, a recently invented drafting device that allowed portraitists to capture their sitters' profiles with extreme accuracy. After tracing a subject

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