James Alexander Fulton of Mount Erin

Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin

Brooklyn Museum photograph

Object Label

In this portrait of a Virginia plantation owner, the French émigré and itinerant artist Charles de Saint-Mémin achieved his precise realism with the aid of a physiognotrace, a mechanical device for tracing a silhouette. After establishing the outline of the head, the artist described the details of the sitter’s appearance with different media that capture a variety of textures and forms.

The vogue for profile portraits on both sides of the Atlantic about 1800 was influenced by Neoclassical taste, as well as by popular ideas on physiognomy, a pseudoscientific notion that a person’s character was manifest in the shapes of his or her facial features. Saint-Mémin produced nearly a thousand images of prominent sitters during his years in the United States, including a companion to this one, of Fulton’s wife, Elizabeth (on display nearby).

Caption

Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin French, 1770–1852, active United States, 1793–1814. James Alexander Fulton of Mount Erin, ca. 1808. Black crayon, pastel, charcoal, and white chalk on paper coated with pink opaque watercolor and pastel mounted to wood-pulp board, sheet: 21 5/16 × 15 1/4 in. (54.1 × 38.7 cm) frame: 25 1/2 × 19 1/2 × 2 5/8 in. (64.8 × 49.5 × 6.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Museum Collection Fund, 30.1104. No known copyright restrictions (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 30.1104_PS2.jpg)

Gallery

Not on view

Collection

American Art

Title

James Alexander Fulton of Mount Erin

Date

ca. 1808

Medium

Black crayon, pastel, charcoal, and white chalk on paper coated with pink opaque watercolor and pastel mounted to wood-pulp board

Classification

Drawing

Dimensions

sheet: 21 5/16 × 15 1/4 in. (54.1 × 38.7 cm) frame: 25 1/2 × 19 1/2 × 2 5/8 in. (64.8 × 49.5 × 6.7 cm)

Signatures

Unsigned

Credit Line

Museum Collection Fund

Accession Number

30.1104

Rights

No known copyright restrictions

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