Washington City: Chas. Fenderich, 1840. Item #659

Folio.  435 x 325 mm., [17 x 12 ½ inches].  Lithographic portrait drawn from life.  A few minor tears to the margins, expertly repair, some light foxing and discoloration.  A very stable and flexible paper stock.

 Rare portrait of the military hero from Kentucky, (thought to be the killer of Tecumseh), close associate of Henry Clay, Member of both Houses of Congress and finally the Vice President of the United States.  The portrait was made while Johnson was Vice President and it captures the sense of the man and the knowing look he casts on the viewer.  It is very beautifully executed by the artist and is a display of the artists skill and sense of humanity.

 Not much can be gleaned about the life and career of Charles Fenderich, who worked in Washington D. C., except from a series of lithographic portraits that he made of a number of American presidents, members of the Congress and local dignitaries in Maryland and Virginia.  His lithographic portraits are held in many of America’s most prestigious collections, but little biographical information is supplied.

 See Charles Fenderich, Lithographer of American Statesmen.  A Catalogue of his Work.  The Library of Congress.  Compiled by Alice Lee Parker and Milton Kaplan, 1959.  Fenderich is not cited in Mantle Fielding, Dictionary of American Painters.

Price: $600.00