Charles Balthazar Julien Fevret de Saint-Mémin
1770-1852
French
(New York, New York)
Between 1796 and 1810, Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin created some of the most memorable 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.
A member of the French hereditary nobility, Saint-Mémin came to New York City in 1793, at the age of twenty-three. He was a former military officer exiled by the events of the French Revolution. In New York, Saint-Mémin turned to the arts to support himself, his parents, and his sister. With some training in drawing and an aptitude for precision, he taught himself the art of engraving. First, he made a few landscapes and city plans. Then, in 1796 he took up the profession of portraitist. His partner was Thomas Bluget de Valdenuit (1763-1846), also of the French military.
Between 1803 and 1810 Saint-Mémin worked in the United States, producing hundreds of portraits of political leaders and élite society. In Washington, D.C., he met members of three delegations of Plains Indians who visited the capital between 1804 and 1807 at President Thomas Jefferson’s invitation, following the acquisition of their land through the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Saint-Mémin made fifteen depictions of men from several tribes during these visits.
