Brooklyn Museum Quarterly . d contemporaryFrench scientific journals and have not been able to get anyaccurate description. Guignard records that Saint-Memin invented artificialaids to his drawing which were much less ponderous andeasier of manipulation than those used by Chretien andQueneday. All we know with certainty is that he took up portraitengraving after the manner of Chretien and that he didmake a machine which he called a physionotrace by whichhe produced with great accuracy on pink paper the profileof the sitter, life size, and that he then reduced the profile bythe aid of the panto
Brooklyn Museum Quarterly . d contemporaryFrench scientific journals and have not been able to get anyaccurate description. Guignard records that Saint-Memin invented artificialaids to his drawing which were much less ponderous andeasier of manipulation than those used by Chretien andQueneday. All we know with certainty is that he took up portraitengraving after the manner of Chretien and that he didmake a machine which he called a physionotrace by whichhe produced with great accuracy on pink paper the profileof the sitter, life size, and that he then reduced the profile bythe aid of the pantograph or tracer within a circle upon acopper plate, the diameter of which was generally about twoinches. Having thus obtained the perfect outline, the de-tails were worked up by the graver, the shading being finished ^° Bryan—Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Vol. I,p. 292. ^^ The Portraits of Saint-Memin, Appletons Magazine, July,1906, p. 85. Letter from Dr. William J. Campbell of Sept. 28, 1917, to•the writer. 13. ALEXANDER SMITH, OF BALTIMORE From the original crayon by SAINT-MEMIN in tlie possession of Mr. John Hill Morgan with the roulette, the latter tool being made by a inaehine ofhis own invention. Exactly what these mechanical aidswere we shall probably never know, as Guignard tells us thatwhen he was about to return to France in 1814, he destroyedthese inventions. The knowledge that he was going backto his fatherland freed from the bondage of turning out por-traits for hire, no doubt led him to this course. If the reader will examine the crayon portrait of Alex-ander Smith of Baltimore (illustrated), he will note thateven to-day the profile is so clear and distinct, and drawnMith such sureness that it could hardly have been producedby other than mechanical means. Saint-Memin being anartist of considerable merit, then finished the portrait free-hand in black and white crayon until it stood an excellentlikeness of the sitter. The writer has examined perhapsfift
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