Details
Title Lesueur, Charles Alexandre
Date January 1, 1778-December 12, 1846
Description Charles Alexandre Lesueur, born January 1, 1778 in Le-Havre, France, was an artist, naturalist, and early member of the Academy of Natural Sciences (Philadelphia), who experimented with lithography in Philadelphia in the late 1810s and early 1820s. An experienced specimens illustrator from a previous travel expedition with French commander Nicholas Baudin, Lesueur arrived in America in 1816 at the bequest of Scottish-American geologist William Maclure to explore the Northeastern United States.
In 1817, he learned copperplate engraving and in 1819 began to experiment with lithography in Philadelphia as a means to illustrate his own articles in scientific periodicals. Lesueur resided in Philadelphia between 1818 and 1825 and worked as an art teacher, illustrator, and naturalist. He received diplomas from the Academy of Natural Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Societas Medica Philadelphiensis. In 1821, lithographs that he drew and printed after sketches of specimens he made while on his surveys with Maclure illustrated a small number of the October 1821 issue of "The Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia" before being replaced by engravings.
Lesueur continued to experiment with lithography in the city until about 1823. In 1825 he relocated to the commune New Harmony, Indiana where he remained, except for travels, until 1837. That year he returned to France via New Orleans. In 1846 he was appointed Curator of the Museum of Natural History at LeHavre, France. Lesueur died in France on December 12, 1846
Is part of Philadelphia on Stone Biographical Dictionary of Lithographers
Call number Philadelphia on Stone Biographical Dictionary of Lithographers
Bibliographic citation Groce & Wallace, 395
Library Company of Philadelphia research file
Peters, 367
Vail, "The American Sketchbooks of Charles Alexandre Lesueur, 1816-1837," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society (April 1938): 49-155
Weimerskirch, "The Beginnings of Lithography in America," Journal of the Printing Historical Society 27 (1998): 50, 56
WWWAA, 2003