Charles Balthazar Julien Fevret de Saint-Memin

Between 1796 and 1810, Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin (1770-1852) created some of the most beautiful images in the history of American portraiture. Nearly a thousand Americans sat for portraits, among them Thomas Jefferson, Paul Revere, Mother Seton, Meriwether Lewis, and Charles Willson Peale. Saint-Mémin's popularity rested on a growing appreciation for profiles as a particularly truthful form of portraiture, and his distinctive images have come to epitomize Federal America.