John Beale Bordley

1802-1803

Charles B. J. Févret de Saint-Mémin

Artist, French, 1770 - 1852

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    mezzotint and engraving in black on wove paper mounted to brown wove paper

  • Credit Line

    Corcoran Collection (Gift of William Wilson Corcoran)

  • Dimensions

    image (irregular): 5.56 × 5.56 cm (2 3/16 × 2 3/16 in.)
    sheet (trimmed to plate): 6.83 × 6.19 cm (2 11/16 × 2 7/16 in.)

  • Accession

    2015.19.1584.37.3

  • Catalogue Raisonné

    Miles 1994, no. 70

Associated Artworks

See all 14 artworks

Sulivan Gray

Charles B. J. Févret de Saint-Mémin

1807

John Dennis

Charles B. J. Févret de Saint-Mémin

1803

William Fitzhugh

Charles B. J. Févret de Saint-Mémin

1807

More About this Artwork

A middle-aged, light-skinned man stands facing and looking at us, leaning on one arm propped on a tall rock in a landscape in this vertical portrait painting. The man looks out with dark blue eyes under curved black brows. He has a prominent nose, his full apricot-colored lips are closed, and there is a shadow of a beard on his smooth cheeks. He has a receding hairline, and his wavy, ash-gray hair curls around his high, white collar. The man wears a tawny-brown topcoat with white, ruffled cuffs at his wrists, and a long brown vest with fabric-covered buttons. He wears matching brown, knee-length pantaloons with white stockings, and black shoes with gold buckles. His feet are widely planted as he leans on the tall rock on his left elbow, to our right. His elbow rests on an open book on the tall, narrow rock, shaped like a podium. Writing visible in the thick book reads, “Nolumus Leges Angliae mutari.” He points with his other index finger to our right. Behind the man and to our right is a gray, stone statue of a woman wearing flowing robes. She holds a pair of scales in one hand a tall staff with a bell-like form at the top in the other elbow. The statue is angled toward the man, and the tall base on which she stands is carved with the words, “Co LEX ANGLI.” A tree with sickle-shaped leaves and peach-colored fruit spans the height of the composition behind the statue. Near the lower left corner of the composition, two halves of a piece of paper, torn from corner to corner, lies on the ground with the edges curling up. The writing on the paper reads, “Imperial Civil Law — Sumary proceeding.” A thick tree trunk curves in a shallow S shape up along the left edge of the canvas, behind the man. Fern-green jimson weed, clover, small flowers, and rocks carpet the ground beneath and around the man. In the distance, to our left, a man wearing a red coat, a tricorn hat, and holding a musket leads a mule carrying a pack, while sheep graze to our right. Pockets of azure-blue sky are visible beyond gray clouds to our left and fluffy, flaxen-yellow clouds to our right.

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Artwork history & notes

Provenance

the artist, Dijon, France; Léon Victor Raoul Leclerc, Vicomte de Juigné (the artist's nephew), Dijon, France, 1852; (Henry Stevens, London, England, c. 1859); William W. Corcoran, Washington, DC, c. 1874; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1875; acquired 2015 by the National Gallery of Art

Associated Names

Bibliography

1862

  • Dexter, Elias. The St. Memin Collection of Portraits; Consisting of Seven Hundred and Sixty Medallion Portraits, Principally of Distinguished Americans. Elias Dexter: New York, 1862, no. 166.

1940

  • Catalogue of Engraved Portraits by Favret de Saint Memin, 1770-1852. Washington, DC: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1940, p. 10.

1994

  • Miles, Ellen G. Saint-Mémin and the Neoclassical Profile Portrait in America. Washington, DC: National Portrait Gallery, 1994, p. 250, no. 70.

Inscriptions

lower center in plate: AEt. 75.; lower center mount in black ink by unknown hand: John Beale Bordelay.

Wikidata ID

Q77262094

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