James Breckinridge

James Breckinridge, a Virginia politician and a member of the University of Virginia's board of visitors from 1819 until 1833, is the subject of this head-and-shoulders portrait made in Richmond in 1808. The artist, Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin, was a French nobleman who fled the French Revolution, came to the United States, and took up portraiture. Nearly 1,000 Americans sat for portraits by Saint-Mémin including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Marshall.