title: What did the early American presidents really look like? Gilbert Stuart portraits as a "Rosetta Stone" to the pre-photography era.
abstract: The American painter Gilbert Stuart (1755 - 1828) painted many prominent individuals, including the first six presidents of the United States, and several of his later subjects were also photographed. We compared these photographs to Stuart's portraits of the same individuals and characterized the differences between Stuart's representations and his subjects' actual appearances. This allows us to create more photographic likenesses of other Stuart subjects, including individuals who lived before the invention of photography.
authors.affiliation: Department of Brain and Cognitive Science, Massachusetts institute of Technology, Building 46-4078, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. kehinger@mit.edu
authors.forename: Krista A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Ehinger
authors.forename: Eric L
authors.initials: EL
authors.lastname: Altschuler
mesh_terms: D005145:Face / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005197:Famous Persons; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D010151:Paintings; D010781:Photography / Q000266:history; D011173:Portraits as Topic; D014481:United States