George Washington by Madame Brehan (Engraving)

Artist/Maker: Barthélemy Joseph Fulcran Roger (1767-1841), engraver, after P.F. Tardieu (1711-1771), from a drawing by Madame de Bréhan (active in U.S. 1788-89)

Created: 1801

Origin/Purchase: United States

Materials: stipple engraving

Dimensions: 15.1 × 10.2 (5 15/16 × 4 in.)

Location: Dining Room

Historical Notes: The French minister to the United States, the comte de Moustier, arrived in New York in 1787 with his sister-in-law, Madame de Bréhan. Jefferson, then in Paris, knew both Moustier and de Bréhan.^[1] He sent glowing letters of introduction for them to John Jay and James Madison. "I think it impossible," Jefferson wrote to Jay, "to find a better woman, more amiable, more modest, more simple in her manners, dress, and way of thinking."^[2] Jefferson described de Bréhan to Madison as "goodness itself. ... The way to please her is to receive her as an acquaintance of a thousand years standing."^[3]

George Washington received Moustier and de Bréhan at Mount Vernon in November 1788.^[4] After their meeting, de Bréhan began drawing a profile of Washington, which she finished on October 3, 1789, when she and Moustier visited the newly elected President Washington in New York. Washington recorded in his diary that he "sat about two Oclock for Madam de Brehan to complete a Miniature profile of me which she had begun from Memory and which she had made exceedingly like the Original."^[5]

Madam de Bréhan brought with her to Paris the original profile of Washington, done in watercolor on ivory, and there Moustier had it engraved. He sent proofs of the prints to Washington in May 1790, and promised that de Bréhan would send the original as a gift to Martha Washington once it returned from the engraver. The Washingtons were apparently enamored with the prints and presented several to their friends and associates.^[6] Jefferson may have been among the recipients. He displayed Washington's profile by de Bréhan in the Dining Room at Monticello; his copy is unlocated.

- Text from Stein, Worlds, 166-67