The
The Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and
Printed Ephemera
Henry Francis du Pont
5105 Kennett Pike, Winterthur,
Delaware 19735
Telephone: 302-888-4600 or 800-448-3883
OVERVIEW OF
THE COLLECTION
Creator: Sansom, Joseph, 1765 or 1766-1826.
Title: Silhouette albums
Dates: 1790-1800
Call No.: Doc. 52
Acc. No.: 86x29
Quantity: 2 volumes
Location: 31 A
BIOGRAPHICAL
STATEMENT
An amateur landscape draftsman, Philadelphia Quaker
Joseph Sansom (1767-1826) was noted as a traveler and author. Sansom was the son of Hannah Callendar and
Samuel Sansom. Following his 1798
marriage to Beulah Biddle (1768-1837), he embarked on a three year tour
abroad. He and his wife had no
children.
SCOPE AND
CONTENT
Consists of ink silhouette portraits bound in two
separately titled volumes, dated 1790-1800.
Death dates added in vol. 2 as late as 1825 indicate that these volumes
had an active life after date of creation. Volume 1 is titled An Occasional
Collection of Physiognomical Sketches, chiefly North American, and drawn from
the life; designed to preserve the characteristic features of personally,
mentally, or officially Remarkable Persons, and the endeared memory of Private
Friends or Public Benefactors with professional Notices, &c. The volume contains 58 profiles of people in
the Philadelphia area including Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Robert
Morris, Edmund Randolph, Benjamin Chew, Samuel Shoemaker, members of the Sansom
and Perot families, and various other merchants, gentlemen, women, and
ministers of the Gospel, plus a Native American, Tsekuyeaathaw of the Senecas
(he is better known as Red Jacket). In
addition to identifying the subjects, some other information, such as
profession and age, is usually added.
Volume 1 includes a table of contents.
Some of the portraits have been removed.
Volume 2 contains 16 profiles of notable Europeans,
including Pope Pius VII, Napoleon Bonaparte, King George III, William Pitt, and
others. The title of this volume is Fifteen
Silhouettes of eminent, or respectable, Personages; taken, occasionally, in
Europe, about the year 1800. The table
of contents (found on the title page) lists the names of the subjects; they are
not identified on the pages themselves.
A small, unidentified, silhouette was found loose in this volume as
well.
LANGUAGE OF
MATERIALS
The materials are chiefly pictorial, but captions
are in English.
RESTRICTIONS
ON ACCESS
Collection is open to the public. Copyright restrictions may apply.
PROVENANCE
Purchased from Anne S. Morris, widow of Elliston P.
Morris, whose bookplate is found in both volumes.
RELATED
MATERIALS
The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, in
Philadelphia, holds an album similar to Downs Collection's volume 1; HSP's album
once belonged to the Perot family. [See
article about it in the Pennsylvania
Magazine of History and Biography, Oct. 1964.] The Friends Historical Library at Swarthmore
College holds the Thomas Gilpin Profile Album, which was copied from one of the
Sansom albums.
ACCESS POINTS
People:
Red Jacket, Seneca chief, approximately 1756-1830.
Topics:
Clergy - Portraits.
Indians of North
America - Portraits.
Silhouettes -
Europe.
Silhouettes -
Pennsylvania - Philadelphia.
Women - Portraits.
Philadelphia (Pa.) - Biography - Portraits.
Silhouettes.
Portrait
painters.
INDEX TO
VOLUME 1 (acc. 86x29.1)
Note: there is a table of contents in the front of
this volume; the names are in alphabetical groups, but someone switched the
first and second leaves, and so Pen-Z comes before A-Pem.
Captions in parentheses below is information taken
from the album. Captions in square
brackets is information added by the cataloger.
A number of pages are missing; most are not listed
in the table of contents; some missing pages are in the table of contents, but
the name has been erased. The missing
pages are as follows:
5, 7, 13-14 [these refer to the extra
silhouettes found on page 12], 17, 19-20, 25-26 [page 26 is listed in table of
contents, but name is erased], 29-32, 34, 36, 41-42, 44-46, 52, 54 (which
appears to be pasted to page 53), 56, 58-59 [page 59 listed in table of
contents, but name is erased], 62, 64, 67, 72-73 [page 72 listed in table of
contents, but name is erased], 75, 77-78, 81 [page listed in table of contents,
but name is erased], 84-86 [page 86 listed in table of contents, but name is
erased], 92-95 [page 95 listed in table of contents, but name is erased], 97-99,
101 [page listed in table of contents, but name is erased], and 105.
Name - page
number [note: Sansom’s numeral 1’s sometimes can be mistaken for sloppy 5’s]
Abington, Susanna Penelope page 4
(of
Ph., daughter of the late Dr. Abraham Chovet; aged 49)
Allinson, Samuel page
87
(esquire,
of New Jersey, aged 50)
[wearing a hat]
Benezet, Philip page
76 [which is after p. 74, which is after p. 75]
(of
Philad., gent. [gentleman], aged 69)
[wearing a hat]
Callender, Catharine page
6
(relict
of Will. Call[ender], esq., age about 75)
Carroll, Daniel page
51
(representative
in Congress for Maryland, aged 70)
[first name from table of
contents; it does not appear on the actual page]
Chew, Benjamin page
50
(esq., of Philadelphia, sometime
Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, & caetera, &c., aged 70)
[wearing a hat]
Chovet, Abraham
page 1
(M.D.
of Philadelphia, age 85)
[wearing
a hat]
Coates, Samuel page
90 [which is on back of p. 89]
(of
Philad., grocer, many years manager of the Penns. Hospital, aged 43)
[wearing a hat]
Cockburn, Guillaume, conte de Cockburn page 69
(sometimes commandant at Cape
Francois, descended from the royal house of Stuart, aged 85]
[appears to have
a beard; slip of paper with identification is pasted to the page]
De Brahm, John William Gerrard page 27
(native
of Coblence, Germany, now of Philadelphia, aged 73) [ has a beard]
[this silhouette was done on a
separate piece of paper and affixed to this page, covering another silhouette]
[De Marsillac,
John] page 48 [which is on back of page
47]
[not identified; name is
from table of contents; there it is in the M’s]
Dilwyn, George page 89
(of Burl., [Burlington, N.J.], Min.
of the Gosp. [minister of the gospel], aged 50)
[wearing a hat]
Drinker, Henry page 103
(of Phil., Merch. [merchant], aged
57)
[wearing a hat]
[he is not listed in table of contents]
Drinker, John page 55
(of Philad., Merch. [merchant], aged
60)
[wearing a hat]
Franklin,
Benjamin page 82
(Dr., F.R.S. [Fellow of the Royal
Society], sometime governour of Pennsylvania, aged 84)
Griffitts, Samuel Powell page 22
(Dr.,
of Phil., aged 31)
Harrison, Thomas page
91
(taylor [sic, i.e. tailor], the
fourth successive and unwearied advocate for the blacks at Philad., aged 51)
[appears to be
wearing glasses]
Head, John page
35
(of
Phil., gent. [gentleman], aged 67)
[wearing a hat]
Howell, Joshua page
80
(of
Philad., gentleman, aged 65)
[wearing a hat]
Hutton, John page
3
(silversmith,
of Ph., native of New York, aged 107)
Jones, Owen page
8
(of
Philadelphia, gent. [gentleman], age 78)
[wearing
a hat]
Jones, Rebecca page
53
(of
Philad., M.G. [minister of the gospel], aged 50)
Lewis, William page
74
(esq.,
barrister, of Phil., aged 30)
Madison, James page
71
(esq.,
OF, representative in Congress for the State of Virginia, aged 30)
[Marsillac, John
de] page 48 [which is on back of page
47]
[not identified; name is
from table of contents; cross-referenced under de]
Morris, Robert page
104
(of
Phil., merchant, minister of finance during the American Revolution, &c.,
aged 50)
Parrish, John page
100
(of
Phil., M.G. [minister of the gospel], brush-maker, aged 61)
[wearing a hat]
Paschall, Thomas page
43
(of
Phil., ironmonger, aged 69)
[wearing a hat]
[he
is not listed in table of contents]
Pemberton, James page
47
(esq., of Philad., president of the
Penn. Soc. for the Ab. Of Slavery &c [Pennsylvania Society for the
Abolition of Slavery], aged 68)
[wearing a hat]
Pemberton, John page 57
(of Phil., M of the G [minister of
the gospel], aged 63)
[wearing a hat, and shows the torso,
not just the head and shoulders
Pennington,
Edward page 65
(of Ph., sugar-baker, aged 60)
[wearing a hat;
straight lines frame the silhouette]
Perot, Elliston page
21
(merchant
of Philad., aged 40)
Perot, Elliston, Jr. pages
15 & 16 [one page with both numbers]
(Jun.
or C.P., aged 18 months)
[name in table of contents
given as Elliston C. Perot]
Perot, John page
88
(of
Philad., merch [merchant], aged 40)
[wearing a hat]
Perot, Samuel page
15 & 16 [one page with both numbers]
(of
Philadelphia, age 2 years and ten months)
Perot, Sarah page
23
(of
Phil., aged 27)
Pleasants, Mary page
49
(wife
of S.P.M. of Phila., aged 50)
Proud, Robert page
9
(teacher
of languages in the Friends’ Academy at Phil., age 50)
[wearing
a hat]
Randolph, Edmund page
63
(esq.,
Attorney General of the United States, sometime governour of Virginia)
Redman, John page
38
(of
Philad., M.D., president of the College of Physicians, aged 69)
[wearing a hat]
Ridgeway, Mary page
28
(widow,
min. of the gos., of Mountmelick, Ireland, aged 63)
Sansom, Hannah page
12 [listed as pages 12 & 13 in table
of contents]
(of Philad., age 52)
[three
silhouettes on one page; two were on other pieces of paper which have been pasted
to the page in this album]
Sansom, Joseph page 40
(of Philad., merch. [merchant], aged
24)
[wearing a hat]
Sansom, Samuel page 33
(of Phil., gent. [gentleman], aged
51)
Sansom, Samuel,
Jun. page 102
(of Philadel., aged 18)
Sansom, William page 37
(of Philad., merch. [merchant], aged
27)
[wearing a hat]
Savery, William page
2
(tanner,
M.G. [minister of the gospel] at Phil., aged 40)
Say, Thomas page
66
(of
Philad., druggist, aged 82)
Shoemaker, Benjamin page
61
(of
Philad., gent. [gentleman], aged 40)
[wearing a hat]
Shoemaker, Samuel page
18
(esq.,
of Philadel., several times mayor, aged 66)
[he is wearing a hat]
Smith, Benjamin page
39
(of
Phil., merch. [merchant], aged 27)
Smith, Daniel page
68
(of
Burlington, [N.J.], gent. [gentleman], aged 62)
Smith, Richard. page
10
(esq.,
of Burlington, [N.J.], member of the Revolution Congress, age 50)
[wearing
a hat]
Sproat, James page
11
(senior
presbyter or the Presbyterian Church at Philadelphia, aged 70)
[Sterling, James – name in table of contents, to be
on page 73, but that is missing]
Tsekuyeaathaw page
96
(or
the Man that keeps you awake, Chief Speaker of the Five Nations, aged 30);
[this is a variant spelling of his
name; he is more commonly known by his English name, Red Jacket; he was a
Seneca]
Waln, Nicholas page
79
(Minister
of the Gospel, and counsellor at law, of Philadelphia)
[wearing a hat; no age given
but appears to be elderly]
[Washington, George] page
106
(“Standing, for the last time, in
the midst of the Representatives of the People of the United States.” Pres. Sp. 1796)
[Washington
is not identified on the page, but is listed in the table of contents.]
White, William page
83
(Dr.,
Bish. [Bishop] of Philad., aged 40)
Williams, Daniel page
60
(esq.,
of Phil., aged 70)
[wearing a hat; and shows
part of torso, including his paunch]
Zane, Isaac page
24
(of
Philad., M.G. [minister of the gospel], aged 80)
[wearing a hat]
INDEX TO
VOLUME 2 (acc. 86x29.2)
“Fifteen Silhouettes of Eminent, or Respectable,
Personages; taken, occasionally, in Europe, about the year 1800”
Spine title: “British Portraits in Profile, 1799”
The table of contents is the only identification of
these silhouettes. Phrases inside quotation marks are the
inscriptions from the title page. Material
in brackets was added by the cataloger.
Barclay, David page
8
“David Barclay, grandson of
the Apologist”
[Robert Barclay
(1648-1690) was a Scottish Quaker and was known as the Apologist because of his
writings. His grandson David Barclay of
Youngsbury (1729-1809) was a banker (forerunner of Barclays Bank) and a
brewer. He freed his Jamaican slaves and
moved them to Pennsylvania.]
Dilwyn, William page
7
“William
Dilwyn, brother of George”
[A silhouette of George
Dilwyn of New Jersey is found in volume 1.
In
the silhouette, he wears a hat.]
Henry
Benedict Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York page 2
“Cardinal York, grandson of
James II”
[Cardinal
Duke of York (1725-1807) (full name: Henry Benedict Thomas Edward Maria Clement
Francis Xavier Stuart) was the fourth and final Jacobite
heir to claim the thrones of England, Scotland, France,
and Ireland publicly, although he made no effort to
secure the throne. In the silhouette, he
wears a hat.]
George III, King of Great Britain page 4
“George
III, King of Great Britain”
Litta, Cardinal page
15
“Cardinal Litta, when Prime
Minister”
[He wears a skull
cap. This was perhaps Lorenzo Litta
(1756-1820), who was made a cardinal in 1801.
He had been an apostolic nuncio for the Roman Catholic Church (serving
in Poland and Russia), and did other services, but no reference was found to
his being a prime minister.]
Murray, Lindley page
12
“Lindley Murray, the
grammarian”
[Lindley Murray
(1745-1826) was a Quaker, born in Pennsylvania, but he later moved to England,
where he died. His book English Grammar was written for a Quaker
school in York, but became a popular textbook at many schools.]
Napoleon Bonaparte page
13
“Bonaparte, when First
Consul”
[Napoleon
Bonaparte was First Consul of France from 1799-1804, after which he became
emperor.]
Pitt, William page
5
“William Pitt, when premier”
[This is William Pitt
the Younger (1759-1806). He was prime
minister from 1783-1801 and 1801-1806.
His father, also William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, had also been prime
minister, but he died in 1778, before Joseph Sansom went to Europe.]
Pius VII, Pope page
10
“the Pope of Rome, Puis
[sic] VII”
[In this silhouette, the
pope wears his papal tiara. He was born Barnaba Niccolò Maria Luigi
Chiaramonti in 1742, and became pope in 1800, serving until his death in 1823.]
Porteus, Beilby page
3
“Porteus, Bishop of London”
[Beilby Porteus
(1731-1809) was Bishop of Chester and then Bishop of London. He was a reformer and an abolitionist.]
Reynold,
Richard page 11
“Richard Reynolds, the
philanthropist”
[This was ironmaster Richard
Reynolds (1735-1816), a partner in the Coalbrookdale ironworks, a Quaker, and a
philanthropist, known for giving generously to charities.]
Rotch, Benjamin page
6
“Benjamin Rotch, son of
William”
[Probably Benjamin Rotch
(1764-1839) of Nantucket, Mass., son of William Rotch (1734-1828).]
Windham, William page
9
“Secretary Windham”
[Probably William
Windham (1750-1810), who was Secretary at War 1794-1801 under Prime Minister
William Pitt, and Secretary of State for War and the Colonies 1806-1807 under
Prime Minister Lord Grenville.]
York, Cardinal – see Henry
Benedict Stuart, Cardinal Duke of York
No names:
A Romish cardinal page
1
[He
does not wear a cardinal’s hat.]
The Master of the Ceremonies at St. Peter’s page 14
[He
wears a bishop’s miter.]
Plus a loose silhouette found in the volume, not
identified (man wearing a hat)