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About the Collections
Guidebook to Collections
Portraiture Collection
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The American Antiquarian
Society
contains a vast collection of American portrait prints dating from
the late
seventeenth century to the late nineteenth century. Most of the
prints depicted
prominent figures and were created to be available to the
public. Through
these portraits, one can identify successful and famous members of
society,
including United States presidents and other government officials
from a
time before there were photographs.
Arranged alphabetically by name, the portrait collection is
maintained
in the Graphic Arts Department and contains roughly five thousand
images
from newspapers, periodicals, books, letterheads, and
announcements.
The production of portrait prints began in Massachusetts and
expanded
to other American cities by the end of the eighteenth
century. These ranged
from simple almanac cuts to elegant mezzotints.
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| The two most common
processes found
in the AAS portrait collection are line engraving and mezzotint. The
typical
format was a half-length or bust of a person enclosed in an oval
frame within
a rectangle. These portraits were commonly seen as frontispieces in
books
and magazines. Publishers used such portraits to add to the
commercial value
of their publications.
Mezzotint became a popular process in the eighteenth century and
was
revived in the mid-nineteenth century. It consisted of scraping
and burnishing
highlights on a roughened plate. These, like the line engravings,
were
not modeled after a person from life, but instead, copied from
paintings
by such famous portrait artists as Charles Wilson Peale. Click on
the
images to enlarge.
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| The most popular process of
the
nineteenth century that surpasses all the other styles in realism is
the
lithograph. Many were based on daguerreotype portraits of prominent
Americans,
including Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson. They were made to
depict a
bust-length image or, in some cases, full-length portraits with
elaborate
backgrounds.
Some of the most famous portraits in the collection include an
engraving
by Cornelius Tiebout of President Thomas Jefferson and a
lithograph of
Andrew Jackson by Albert Newsan. Other artists represented in the
portrait
print collection include James Heath, John Sartain, and Francis
D'Avignon.
A list of all the subjects
depicted
can be accessed through the American Antiquarian Society web
site.
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| Kathleen Ruyak, November
2001
Barnhill, Georgia Brady, Prints of New England,
Worcester: American Antiquarian
Society, 1991.
Reaves, Wendy Wick, Ed., American Portrait Prints,
Charlottesville: University
Press of Virginia, 1984.
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| Portrait
Collection Inventory List
Index for the Guidebook to Collections
Under its Generous Dome:
The Collections and Programs of the
American Antiquarian Society
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