(1781) Engraved Portrait of Samuel Adams by John Norman Titled, "The Hon.ble Samuel Adams, Esqr. / First Delegate to Congress for Massachusetts," as published in "An Impartial History of the War in America," Boston, Framed, Very Fine.
This classic early Engraved Portrait is framed to 8.75 x 6 inches and measuring 7.25 x 4.5 inches (by sight). It depicts Samuel Adams in an oval frame wreathed in laurel, set above a plinth engraved with two allegorical emblems below, a set of scales suspended from an olive branch, and a serpent coiled about the handle of a hand mirror. Below, the plate is inscribed: “THE HON.BLE SAMUEL ADAMS, ESQ.R / FIRST DELEGATE TO CONGRESS FOR MASSACHUSETTS, J. NORMAN SC.”, the engraver's credit engraved at lower right.

John Norman, an English-born engraver active in Boston and Philadelphia from the 1770s into the early 1800s, and produced this classic portrait of Adams for "An Impartial History of the War in America, Between Great Britain and the United States, from its Commencement to the End of the War", printed in Boston by Nathaniel Coverly and Robert Hodge beginning in 1781. Being one of the earliest published histories of the American Revolutionary War and among the very first American books issued with engraved portraits of its leading figures. Patriot Samuel Adams, already renowned in Boston as a founding organizer of the Sons of Liberty and a leader of the Boston Tea Party. Adams was a member of the Massachusetts delegation to the First Continental Congress in 1774, the distinction commemorated in the plate's title, “First Delegate to Congress for Massachusetts," and later would go on to serve as Governor of Massachusetts from 1794 to 1797. Well printed on laid period paper with sharp definition, well centered with the Copper-Plate outline lightly embossed, having some faint overall even tone, modern framed, ready to hang on display. Provenance: Collection of Rex Stark.