Jefferson sat for a portrait by Houdon in 1789, and the plaster that resulted was exhibited at the Paris Salon that summer. A marble bust based on this plaster is now at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The New-York Historical Society's plaster cast is said to be "unquestionably from the hand of Houdon himself" and made directly from the mold of the original portrait (Bush, "Life Portraits of Thomas Jefferson," 1962, p. 23, no. 10).