[Thomas Jefferson, bust portrait, facing slightly left]

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Thomas Jefferson appears here in a bust-length portrait, turned slightly to his left, a pose that engravers of his era often chose to give a sitter a thoughtful, three-quarter presence. Line engraving was the dominant method for reproducing portraits in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when printed likenesses circulated widely in books, newspapers and single sheets. Jefferson himself was a major public figure by then, having drafted the Declaration of Independence, served as minister to France, and later as the third president, so his face was in demand. The caption card gives no date, so the exact year of this plate is uncertain, but its technique places it firmly within that period of portrait printmaking.

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