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THOMAS JEFFERSON IN 1805. AGED 62. DRAWN BY ST. MEMIN.
From the original crayon drawing by C. B. J. Fevret de St. Mémin, now owned by Mr. John C. Bancroft of Boston. Size, 12 by 18 inches. St. Mémin's American itinerary was New York, 1793 to 1798; New Jersey, 1798; Philadelphia, 1798 to 1804; Baltimore, Annapolis, and Washington, 1804 to 1807; Virginia, 1808; South Carolina, 1809; New York, 1810; and thence back to France in 1814. He never made a stronger or more characteristic drawing than the profile of Jefferson here reproduced. It was for many years the treasured possession of the distinguished historian, George Bancroft, from whom it passed to his son, the present owner. St. Mémin made a drawing of Jefferson the previous year, which he engraved in his usual two-inch circle. But the present portrait was engraved in an oval, of which only one impression, besides those preserved in the two complete sets of St. Mémin's works, is known to exist, and it is in a small album, containing sixteen portraits, belonging to Mr. G. S. Bement of Philadelphia, which is inscribed, by St. Mémin: "Gagne-pain du exilé aux États Unis d'Amérique de 1793 a 1814. Dijon 1842. Le nombre des portraits de ce genre dessinés et gravés par M. de St. M. dans les principales villes des États Unis d'Amérique s'élève a 760. Offert a Monsieur G. Peignot comme un faible hommage au sincère respectueux et tres affectueuse dévouement du dessinateur et graveur Févret de St. Mémin." Thus it will be seen we are indebted to this ingenious Frenchman, driven from his native land by the turmoils of the Revolution, for the preservation of the lineaments of a large number of our citizens. All were not persons of the highest consideration who sought the physionotrace and graver of St. Mémin to hand down to posterity their counterfeit presentments; for St. Mémin's engraved portraits were the carte de visite photographs of the period. He furnished the original life-size crayon drawing on pink paper, with the small engraved plate and a dozen impressions of the portrait, for the sum of thirty-three dollars. But for the hand of St. Mémin we should be without portraits of many important personages, whose likenesses his art has alone preserved.
