(18th/early 19th century)

Five portrait miniature engravings: three by Charles Balthezar Saint-Memin (French, 1770-1852), including Joseph Hopper Nicholson (1770-1817), Maryland House of Delegates 1796-1798, United States Congress 1799-1806, Chief Justice Sixth District of Maryland 1806-1817, (The original drawing of this portrait is pictured as M.619, and gifted by Dr. Lloyd P. Shippen to the Smithsonian Institution), plate 2- 5/8 x 2-5/8 in., Walter Dorsey (1771-1823), Judge Maryland Court of Appeals 1817-1823, plate 2-7/8 x 2-1/2 in., Caesar Augustus Rodney (1772-1824), Representative in Congress 1803-1805, United States Senator 1822-1823, United States Attorney General 1807-1811, Minister to Argentina 1823-1824, inscribed in plate "Drawn & engrd. By St. Memin Philada.", plate 2-3/4 x 2-1/2 in.; two pairs by Edme Queneday (French, 1756-1830), Col. Paul Bentalou (1775-1826) and his wife, Katherine Bentalou,(nee Keeports, 1759-1812) of Baltimore, he was a Revolutionary War hero at the Battle of Savannah, Georgia, inscribed "Dess: au physionotrace et Grave par Queneday rue neuve-des-petits-champs No 15 a Paris", plates 3-3/4 x 3 in.; all unframed and accompanied by portions of journal and three reproduced copies of portrait miniatures,

Provenance: Most extracted from a journal dated 1802 and owned by Mrs. Rebecca Lloyd Nicholson (1770-1848), wife of Chief Justice Joseph Hopper Nicholson, and the second daughter of Col. Edward Lloyd, President of the Executive Council, under the colonial government of Maryland; by descent in the Lloyd and Shippen Families of Baltimore

Note: Five of these portraits are from the same journal as the Saint-Memin portrait of Thomas Jefferson that sold at Brunk Auctions in May, 2014 for a record $19,000. Often these miniatures were sold in quantity to the sitters to give to others and may have been gifted directly to Chief Justice Joseph Hopper Nicholson.

Literature: Ellen Miles, Saint-Memin and the Neoclassical Profile Portrait in America, 1994, nos. 274, 619, 708

Note: Edme Quenedey was initially a partner with Gilles-Louis Chrétien (1774-1811), inventor of the physionotrace, a device that created assisted accurate portraits from life. Upon the French Revolution, ex-patriots from France such as Saint-Memin moved to the United States and used the technology to create drawings and then engravings for many of the heroes of the American Revolution and early national figures of importance.