Attorney General: John Breckinridge
John Breckinridge was born in Augusta County, near Staunton, Virginia, on December 2, 1760. He studied at what is now Washington and Lee University and at the College of William and Mary. In 1780, he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, but due to his youth was not permitted to serve until the following year. Breckinridge studied law and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1785. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives but resigned in 1792 before the start of the congressional term, in order to relocate to Kentucky. In 1793, he accepted appointment as attorney general of Kentucky, serving in that post until becoming an elected member of the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1797.
Elected a U.S. Senator in 1800, he served in that body until resigning in August 1805 to accept President Thomas Jefferson’s offer of the post of Attorney General of the United States. Breckinridge held that office until his death in Lexington, Kentucky, on December 14, 1806.
Alban Jasper Conant was born in 1821 in Chelsea, Vermont. He became well known for his portraits of leading statesmen while visiting Washington, D.C., in the 1880's. He painted several portraits of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860s. It was during this time, in 1863, that the Breckinridge painting was commissioned. It is evident that, since Breckinridge had been deceased for nearly 60 years, Conant was copying from an earlier portrait. He was also an archeologist, author, and founder of the Western Academy of Art in St. Louis, Missouri. Conant died in 1915.