[Thomas Jefferson, bust portrait, facing slightly right]

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Thomas Jefferson appears here in a bust-style portrait, turned slightly to the right, a pose that was common in the portrait prints of American statesmen made in the nineteenth century. Lithography, the medium this print is likely to be, was a cheap and fast way to reproduce drawings and paintings, so images like this spread widely among readers who could not sit for a painter themselves. Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president, was a natural subject for such prints, and his face became one of the most recognizable in the young republic. The caption card gives no date, so the exact year of its making is uncertain.

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