1. Charles Balthazar de Saint-Mémin
(1770-1852)
Mrs. Cummings

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de Saint-Mémin: Mrs. Cummings

Mrs. Cummings

Engraving and aquatint, 1797, Miles (National Portrait Gallery) 206, 72 x 68 mm. . Fine impression on wove paper with good margins, inscribed in pencil verso "Mrs. Cummings, 1797." Saint-Mémin was born in Dijon, France and died in the same city. But from 1796, he, in conjunction with Thomas Bluget de Valdenuit (1763-1846), owned and operated a portrait engraving studio in New York City, and later, by himself, in Philadelphia. Singly and together they produced hundreds of portraits of Americans, some of eminent figures, like Washington and Jefferson, but many of ordinary citizens of the new country. The portraits were almost always profiles, produced by the physiognotrace method, and were acclaimed as exceptional likenesses. Valdenuit returned to France in 1797, Saint-Mémin in 1814. Mrs. Cummings, also known as Phoebe Harisson Cuming (1768-1821) was the wife of Fortescue Cuming, who later (1810) published an account of his travels down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and through Louisiana and Florida. Rare.