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Duane also maintained that he had no right to withdraw the funds without the consent of Congress, which had, in its previous session, declared the Bank safe for Government deposits. Jackson enlisted the help of his Attorney General, Roger B. Taney, to present his argument for the withdrawal of funds to the entire Cabinet. Duane still refused to take any action without the consent of Congress, and Jackson dismissed him after only four months of service, declaring, "He is either the weakest mortal, or the most strange composition I have ever met with." About the ArtistBorn in Warrenton, Virginia in 1847, Richard Norris Brooke (1847–1920) began his art studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts under Edmund Bonsell and James Reid Lambdin. In 1869 he competed for and won the Chair of Fine Arts at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia, leaving that post in 1872 to accept an appointment as U.S. Consul at La Rochelle, France. Before leaving France, Brooke spent three years studying in Paris with Leon Bonnat, who was best known for his portraiture. Brooke returned to the United States in 1879 and settled permanently in Washington, D.C. An active member of the Washington art world, he was commissioned to paint many portraits, both from life and from previous paintings. His portrait of William J. Duane is a copy based on an as yet unidentified earlier painting or engraving. Office of the Curator
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