A refugee from Napoleonic France, Baroness Hyde de Neuville crossed the Atlantic in 1807 to make a new life in America, where she began drawing a country she scarcely understood. Stopping in New York and Washington, D.C., she depicted cultural celebrations, young people, and the customs of a foreign land. Possessing the outsider’s ability to see what insiders often can’t—the truth—she created a body of work unprecedented for females of her time. —E.C.