ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes why Sully depicted Byron as he did and it interprets the portrait from the perspective of Lavaterian physiognomy. The most popular, famous, and influential poet of his generation, Byron was also its most dramatic personality. America's response to Byron charts the fitful but steady evolution of its culture. Byron, though an English poet, featured prominently in the fervent patriotism of America's Jubilee. Sully's sketchbooks in the Philadelphia Museum of Art reveal him adept at imagining characters in Shakespeare but also in Byron, including those in the scandalous Don Juan. Rembrandt Peale was among the more skillful early lithographers. Sully's long and productive career indicates that he managed sitters well, but not being distracted by the restless, chattering poet face to face may have facilitated work on Byron, for it gave him opportunity to interpret the poet in his own way and develop an image of Byron unmistakably his.
