Otis Bass
Portrait painter and inventor of the perspective protractor, Bass Otis was said to have produced the earliest lithograph made in the United States. Born in Massachusetts, Bass worked in New York before settling in Philadelphia. In 1816, Otis painted portraits of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Dolly Madison. They were among twenty-four portraits he painted for Philadelphia publisher Joseph Delaplaine's Repository of the Lives and Portraits of Distinguished American Characters; of these, only the Jefferson portrait ended up being published. Some of the remaining portraits were exhibited in Delaplaine's Philadelphia gallery, which later became part of Rubens Peale's New York museum.
