Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin
1804
ink
paper
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
William Thornton is a 1804 ink by Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin, a Romanticism work, held at National Gallery of Art.
This print shows William Thornton, a man in a dark coat with a high white collar. His face is sharp and lined, caught in soft light against a dark background. The artist used engraving to carve fine lines into metal, then inked the plate. A tool called a burnisher smoothed some lines to create gentle shadows on Thornton’s face. This technique makes his features look almost three-dimensional. Mezzotint prints like this were popular in the early 1800s for portraits.
Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin (French pronunciation: ; 1770–1852) was a French portrait painter and museum director.
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