Profile portraits by Saint-Memin include those of, from left, an Osage warrior, George Washington and General Jean-Victor Moreau.

Lt. Dyer Sharpe Wynkoop, 1800.

    U.S. Marine Lt. Dyer Sharpe Wynkoop was busy making ready to go to sea in the spring of 1800, but not too busy to think of his sister Mary.
    "I will bring you a handsome preasant," the young officer wrote, "which is nothing more than my likeness, taken just below the Shoulders, and as large as life, and in Uniform. I gave 18 dollars for it, so that you can always see me, for it is as like me as anything can be."
    The drawing is one of hundreds in a National Portrait Gallery exhibition of Charles Balthazar Julien Fevret de Saint-Memin (1770-1852), a noble refugee from the French Revolution. The portrait is indeed handsome, and no doubt Mary Wynkoop treasured it all the more because her 25-year old brother was lost at sea that summer when his ship, the Insurgente, disappeared while cruising off the Virginia coast.
    "It was very probably the only likeness of him that had ever been made," says curator Ellen G. Miles. "There were not that many portrait makers in early America, and the prices that the popular ones charged were out of reach of the average person. Gilbert Stuart, for instance, charged $100, and might make you wait for months or years for the finished work."
    Saint-Memin was able to charge a fraction of that for his drawings because he used the latest technology: His portraits were done on a machine called the physiognotrace, a duplicating device based on the pantograph. It allowed the artist to capture a phiz fast, with only a little freehand finishing work by looking at the sitter through an eyepiece and tracing his or her features with a pivoting pointing rod. A pencil attached to the other end repeated the movements on a sheet of paper. With a little practice a drawing could be done in a couple of minutes.
    Saint-Memin, who had been an officer in the French royal palace guard, fled France because his life and lands were forfeit during the Reign of Terror into which the French Revolution degenerated. While his countrymen were chopping off thousands of their fellow citizens' heads, Saint-Memin was busily saving about a thousand American heads for posterity. His legacy is unique because he took likenesses of ordinary citizens along with those of the rich and famous, although only the prosperous could afford to sit for him in a time when a dime a day was decent wage.
    Along with his life-size and remarkably lifelike portrait drawings, Saint-Memin offered a package deal: The drawing, a copper-plate engraving and 12 prints, all for $25 for men and $35 for women (whose hairdos and jewelry were more tedious to render). "It was the equivalent of a modern portrait studio's offer of an 8-by-10 and a dozen wallet-size prints," curator Miles says. The charge for the drawing alone was $8; the doomed Lt. Wynkoop paid $10 more to have it framed.
    The results were uniformly excellent although Saint-Memin was entirely self-taught and took up portraiture only under the necessity of finding genteel employment to support his dispossessed family. He gave full value for the money, producing finely modeled and subtly highlighted drawings that betray no hint of mechanical reproduction, and extraordinary engravings that are almost photographically detailed.
    For all his skill and talent, Saint-Memin was modest. "For my ability in the drawing phase of art I make no claims," he told a friend, "since I made use of an instrument in order to obtain the most essential features, and since, if there is any merit in the delicacy and studied exactness of the likeness, the draughtsman owes his ability, so entirely independent of his efforts, to providence."
    Saint-Memin worked in America from 1793 to 1814 and won U.S. citizenship. He more less retired from portraiture after 1809__once he had finished the commissions he gathered during Aaron Burr's treason trial in Richmond. When the Bourbon monarchy was restored in 1814, Saint-Memin chopped his physiognotrace into kindling and took the family back to France, where his estates were partially restored; he ended his days as director of the Dijon Museum.
    Although Saint-Memin's name may be obscure to nonspecialists, most visitors will soon recognize his work. Among the portraits in this well-crafted exhibition are dozens, from Washington and Jefferson to Native Americans, that have been standard book and magazine illustrations for nearly two centuries. They wear exceedingly well.

Federal Profiles: Saint-Memin in America, 1793-1814 - Through May 29 at the National Portrait Gallery. Eighth and F streets NW. Open 10 to 5:30 daily. Metro: Gallery Place.

Source:

Burchard, Hank, "The Many Faces Saint-Memin Saved", Washington Post, Washington, D.C., Friday, 2 December 1994: Weekend Section, Page n71.

    Richard Wynkoop, in the 1904 edition of the Wynkoop Genealogy in the United States of America, has this to say about Dyer Sharpe Wynkoop on pages 107-108:

    435. Dyer Sharpe Wynkoop, (Abram 176, Abraham 52, Benjamin 8, Cornelius 1,) 1st Lieut. of Marines: born about 1775: died in 1800. His signature appears as Dyre S. Wynkoop.
    His first name was the family name of his paternal grandmother, and his second the family name of his mother. He was maintained and educated by Nicholas Hammond, at Cambridge and Easton, Md., after the death of his father. Hammond was related through his grandmother, Mary Dyer, who married 1st, a Hammond, 2d, Abraham Wynkoop.
    Dyer Sharpe Wynkoop was appointed First Lieutenant in the U. S. Marine Corps, November 16, 1798, on its re-organization. Two official letters from him are in existence; the first written at Dover, Del., August 19, 1798; and the other on board the U. S. brig General Pinckney --- at sea, December 28, 1799, and at Charleston, January 10, 1800; each addressed to Maj. W. W. Burrows, Commandant U. S. M. C., at that time. They were "very well written," and show him to have been a man of good education and intelligence. ²³⁴ He was lost at sea, with the U. S. frigate Insurgent, in July or August, 1800. A portrait of him, in his uniform, is in existence, and a copy of it given on p. 108:
    The French frigate L'Insurgente, 40, Capt. Barreault, was captured February 9, 1799, by the Constellation, 38, Capt. Thomas Truxton, and was taken into St. Kitts. She was one of the fastest vessels in the world. In the year following, she was

    ²³⁴ Col. Charles G. McCawley, Com'd't of Marines, Washington, D. C.

108                        Wynkoop Genealogy

    ²³⁵ Cooper's Naval History.

    About six years ago, Robert E. Wynkoop, [email protected], (one of Ned Wynkoop's descendants, through his son Harman H. Wynkoop), and I began a correspondence. In one of his emails, Bob asked me if I had a copy of the Wynkoop article from the Washington Post, which had been published a few years earlier. I had to confess that I knew nothing about the subject and asked if he had a copy that he could send me. Bob had just finished a move to Florida, so all of his stuff was still in boxes, but he promised to keep an eye out for it when he got around to unpacking.

    I never did hear anything more about that article, but it's one of those many things that kind of stuck in the back of my mind. I promised myself that I'd get around to digging it up one day.

    About a year ago I discovered that the Washington Post had put up a search engine for all their newspaper articles written in the last decade or so. Naturally I went over to take a look. I discovered a lot of inconsequential stuff on real estate transactions and board meetings and a couple of interesting Wynkoop items. One of them is the article you have just finished reading, and the other is an obituary for Admiral Thomas Wynkoop. I don't have a copy of the obituary yet, but I will someday. The article on Saint-Memin, is, I hope, the article that Bob mentioned to me all those many years ago now. The picture of Dyer Sharpe Wynkoop that now graces these pages did not originally accompany the article. It is lifted from page 108 of Richard Wynkoop's 1904 Wynkoop Genealogy in the United States of America. It'd be nice to have a color copy of his portrait, but for the moment this is the only one I have.

    Bob, wherever you are, thanks for mentioning that Wynkoop article to me. I hope this is the one you were talking about.

    All my best,

    Chris

    P.S.:

    As it turns out, this is not the article that Bob mentioned to me. He wrote me on December 22nd, 1998, in a Post Script, (just like this one), "Have you ever checked out the Wynkoop Tavern in Shepherdstown? I had a sizeable write-up on it from the Wash. Post back in the 60s when we living in the Maryland suburbs. It apparently is a National Monument as [part of] the underground railroad of the Revolutionary War."

    So, the search continues. I'm going to find it yet. Keep your fingers crossed! - chw