Existing comment:
Set of five silhouettes, clockwise from upper left
Rembrandt Peale
Thomas Jefferson
1804
paper silhouette
Charles Willson Peale
Alexander von Humboldt
Nicholas Collin
Aimé Jacques Alexandre Bonpland
Anthony Fothergill
1804
all paper silhouettes
Silhouettes had become fashionable in Paris at the end of the eighteenth century and the trend quickly flourished in the United States. Peale cut silhouettes of Humboldt, his traveling companion Aimé Bonpland, and two members of the American Philosophical Society who accompanied Humboldt to Washington. Peale handed these out to the prominent people Humboldt had met as mementos of his visit. When Peale gave this set to Thomas Jefferson, he requested in exchange a silhouette from the president, which his son Rembrandt copied and distributed to visitors to the Peale Museum.
The Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello, Charlottesville, VA |