Smithsonian American Art Museum
Thomas Jefferson
Henry Dmochowski Saunders, Polish, born Poland 1810-died Poland 1863 · ca. 1857
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was a popular subject of American portraitists throughout his lifetime. French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon’s portrait bust has had the greatest impact in America because it was reproduced on the Jefferson dollar, minted in 1903 to commemorate the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase. For this work, Henry Saunders copied Houdon’s bust while still living in Philadelphia, where the artist would have been able to study a bronzed plaster cast of it in the collection of the American Philosophical Society.
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