Portrait of George Bancroft

Henry Bryan Hall's steel engraving captures George Bancroft, the prominent American historian and statesman, in formal dress. Hall's refined technique employs fine parallel lines to model the face and clothing, characteristic of mid-nineteenth-century portrait engraving. Bancroft, author of the multi-volume *History of the United States*, served as Secretary of the Navy and Minister to Germany and Great Britain. This print exemplifies the reproductive engraving methods that made portraits of notable figures widely available to the American public during the Civil War era.