LA FAYETTE

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Marquis de Lafayette Prints Collection

The Marquis de Lafayette Prints Collection includes more than 650 digitized images drawn from the collections at Skillman Library and the Lafayette College Art Collection. Most of the images are contemporaneous with Lafayette’s life (1757-1834) and depict his involvement in the American and French Revolutions, French politics, and his Farewell Tour of America, 1824-25. Many of the images are portraits of Lafayette, based on paintings or other engravings of him. The prints are primarily lithographs, although the collection also includes stipple and line engravings, etchings, mezzotints, and aquatints. The prints are organized into series, reflecting as much as possible a chronological order based on Lafayette’s age in the portrait, rather than the date the likeness was printed. Many of the series are set up under the name of the artist on whose original painting the print was or appears to have been based. The Prints Collection is one of several collections at Lafayette College documenting the life and career of the man for whom it is named. Other materials include rare books, manuscripts, memorabilia, and paintings and sculpture.

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Marquis de Lafayette Prints Series 06 - Portraits: Jacobi (Bolt)

Prints in Series VI are derived from a portrait of Lafayette engraved ca. 1790 by the German artist Christian Gottfried Jacobi (1764-1845). None of the prints in this series actually carry any printed reference to Jacobi. These Jacobi-type prints are mainly of German origin and often carry the name of another German artist, Johann Friedrich Bolt (1769-1836). Often these prints are dated 1792 and display the following characteristics: Lafayette is shown in bust to the left, with his head in profile to the left, in a uniform and queue, and wearing a hat carrying a plume and the cockade of the Paris National Guard.

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