Medium
Classification
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
Accession Number
S/NPG.74.39.5.21
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Watt** (1802) is a striking profile portrait print by Charles Bazar Julien Févret Saint-Mémin, a French artist and engraver who fled the Revolution and settled in Philadelphia in 1793. Saint-Mémin specialized in intimate, precise likenesses of prominent figures, often using a mechanical tracing device called the physiognotrace to capture with scientific accuracy before engraving them onto copper plates. This technique produced affordable, reproducible prints that democratized portraiture in early America, blending Enlightenment precision with neoclassical elegance. Depicting the male subjec...