JOHN ROBERTS (1768-1803)
after Benjamin Trott (c. 1770-1843)
after Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828)
Mezzotint, 1799
Oval height 7.9, oval width 6.4 cm

Boglewood: 2605
Hart: 486
Wick 66

Source image:
Gilbert Stuart
Oil on canvas (1796)

Version I:  As shown.  Collection:  Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Notes:  This engraving was created by the engraver John Roberts from a miniature portrait by his friend Benjamin Trott, which was in turn based upon Gilbert Stuart's Athenaeum portrait.  While the plate was in the final stage of completion Roberts, following a dispute with Trott, defaced the copper plate by rubbing it with pumice.  As  a  result, the only extant impressions from the intact plate are an undetermined number of proofs taken before the dispute.  (William Dunlap, History of the Arts of Design in the United States, vol. 1, p. 428.)  Yet, despite the damage inflicted by Roberts, the plate survived and was used to create additional impressions in the mid 1800s.