To James Madison from Joseph Delaplaine, 18 November 1814
From Joseph Delaplaine
Philadelphia November 18th. 1814
Sir,
It gives me much pleasure to inform you that Mr. Edwin, in a conversation with him this day on the subject of your portrait, feels every disposition to have it brought out in a proper & unexceptionable manner. Accordingly I have placed the picture and also the plate engraved by Mr. Jones, in his hands for the purpose of alteration. Mr. Edwin says he can readily make such improvements as will be certain to render satisfaction, and I rejoice that I shall at last, after all my anxiety on the subject, be enabled to make good a promise which I made at an early day, and in which my honor is engaged.1
As soon as a proof is had, it shall be forwarded to you. I am with great respect your obedt. humbe. servt.
Joseph Delaplaine
RC (DLC). Docketed by JM.
1. For Dolley Madison’s agreement to loan Gilbert Stuart’s 1804 portrait of JM to Delaplaine for the purpose of making an engraving of it, see JM to Edward Coles, 10 June 1813, 6:381 and n. 1. Delaplaine promised to return the portrait “in about two months,” but in March 1815 it was still in his possession. He had evidently sent a copy of William R. Jones’s engraving of it to Thomas Jefferson in October 1814, asking the former president’s opinion of the likeness, and may have made a similar request of JM (Coles to Dolley Madison, 14 June 1813, ; Delaplaine to Jefferson, 3 Oct. 1814 and 29 Mar. 1815, Looney et al., Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, 8:8 and n., 388–89).