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Andrew Jackson, 1767-1845
Born Lancaster, South Carolina
Starting with George Washington and extending to Dwight Eisenhower, America has rewarded successful military commanders with the presidency. Andrew Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 immediately vaulted him to political prominence, not least because the nascent forces of American democracy -- artisans, workingmen, and small farmers -- coalesced around him as the exemplar of the common man. The prominent Philadelphia portraitist Thomas Sully painted several portraits of Jackson as a military figure and intended one of them, done in 1819 and now owned by New York State, to be reproduced as a print by James Longacre. Although oil painting was, and still is, the most prestigious way to create a likeness, artists were always interested in disseminating their images through engravings and lithographs. Of course, popular prints of Andrew Jackson did the man himself no harm as he launched his political career
James Barton Longacre, after Thomas Sully, 1820 |