William Rawle
Medium
Classification
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Accession Number
S/NPG.79.32
Tags
Art Historical Context
Behold *William Rawle* (1832), a lithographic print by Albert Newsam (1809–1864), capturing the distinguished lawyer in a formal portrait. Newsam, a pioneering American printmaker active in Philadelphia, excelled in lithography—a revolutionary technique of the era that allowed for intricate details and mass reproduction from a single stone-drawn image. Here, Rawle gazes directly at the viewer, his eyeglasses perched precisely, evoking the intellectual rigor of early 19th-century American legal minds. Created during a time when portrait prints democratized access to images of prominent figures...