A highly respected and popular portraitist of his time but largely forgotten today, Robert Street also did historical and Biblical scenes, but many of his paintings have been lost. Nothing is known of his life before 1815 when he first exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy except that he was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania.

He continued to exhibit at the Academy in 1817, 1818, and 1822. In 1824 he showed three historical paintings in Washington, D.C., and in the same year he painted a portrait of Andrew Jackson, which later hung in the White House. In 1834, he painted Joseph Bonaparte, the oldest brother of Napoleon, who was living on an estate in Bordentown, New Jersey. In 1840 a major exhibition of his work was held at the Artist...