Cornelius Tiebout (1773?-1832) was an American copperplate engraver. According to the Library of Congress and many followers, Tiebout was born about 1773. If so, his earliest known engraving was published while he was about fifteen years old.
Biography
Tiebout was born to a Dutch Huguenot family, probably in New York. He was apprenticed to New York silversmith John Burger (1747-1828). Tiebout and Burger's son published (probably in 1789) a songbook entitled Amphion.
Among young Tiebout's many engravings during 1790-1793 are 47 illustrations in The New York Magazine; or, Literary Repository. His engraving of Trinity Church, New York City, appears in the first issue of this magazine, dated the first day of 1790. Each issue of the Magazine that includes a Tiebout engraving also presents, on the contents page, an announcement about the engraving. The accompanying articles provide details of historic interest. Among the 47 subjects are the Federal Edifice in New York City (March, 1790; now Federal Hall), Columbia College (May, 1790, now Columbia University)), Mount Aetna, (November, 1790, now Mount Gibello, in Sicily), West Point (March, 1791, now United States Military Academy), Plan of the City of Washington (June, 1792, Washington, D.C.), and views of rivers, historic residences, and churches. The publication of these engravings in the New York Magazine was of great importance to Tiebout's early career. The publisher, T. and J. Swords, approved of Tiebout's "costly copperplate engravings", and they published a map by Tiebout in issues of the New York City Directory for the years 1789-1793, 1795, and 1796. These directories and other Tiebout engravings can be viewed online from the New York Public Library.
It seems likely that all published maps engraved by Tiebout appeared before he moved from New York to Philadelphia in 1800. These include separate maps of southern states and northern states in 1789. In view of Tiebout's published engravings before 1790, along with other evidence, it is biographically notable that the year 1777—widely published as the year of Tiebout's birth—is less acceptable than the estimate "1773?" given elsewhere. (Another source indicates that Tiebout was born in 1770. His siblings, for whom documentation exists, were born during 1754-1767.)
Tiebout engraved the title page, dated 1789, of Survey of the Roads of the United States of America by Christopher Colles, and possibly he engraved some of the maps in the Survey and taught Colles's daughter Eliza how to do so, leading to recognition of Eliza as the earliest female American engraver.
Another boost for Tiebout's early career was the inclusion of 14 of his engravings in a major publication, the Collected Works of Josephus. The frontispiece of this book was engraved, after English artist Conrad Martin Metz (1749-1827), by Tiebout. According to the caption, the engraving shows the 1st-century Jewish historian Josephus holding a book and writing, "inspired by Historic Muse holding Mirror of Truth in the clouds…".
Late in 1793, Tiebout moved to London. According to Tiebout's daughter Caroline, Tiebout resided in the house of Pennsylvania-born artist Benjamin West during 1793-1796. In London, Tiebout engraved five portraits that were published in London. Referring to Tiebout's London portrait of John Jay, Stauffer wrote, "This is probably the first really good portrait engraved by an American-born professional engraver." Stauffer correctly gives the date of this famous portrait as April, 1795. The date April, 1796, given elsewhere, is an error. In August, 1796, Tiebout returned to New York, and in that year the firm of Cornelius and Alexander Tiebout (not Andrew Tiebout, as found in some sources) published an engraving of a painting by West.
According to many accounts, the purpose of Tiebout's three years in London was to study stipple engraving under James Heath. However, there appears to be no mention of Tiebout in published works about Heath or Tiebout's six London-based engravings. Regarding Tiebout's craftsmanship, Donald O'Brien writes that young Tiebout's work in Josephus is much better than that of the well-established American engraver Amos Doolittle, and that "a cursory examination divulges that Tiebout was a superior craftsman even before studying in London."