The American portrait gallery. With biographical sketches of presidents, statesmen, military and naval heroes, clergymen, authors, poets, etc., etc
The American portrait gallery is an 1877 New York collection of engraved portraits with biographical sketches of American presidents, statesmen, military and naval heroes, clergymen and authors, published by J.C. Buttre. The pictures are steel-engraved head-and-shoulders likenesses of nineteenth-century men in dark coats, cravats and bow ties, set against pale, lightly shaded grounds with occasional handwritten signatures beneath. A designer might draw on their formal, restrained portrait conventions, tonal shading and simple vignette framing for period-style figure studies.
