This PhD project has focused on a group of sketches, which were popular throughout Europe around 1840. The sketches, bearing titles like "les Français peints par eux-mêmes" and "Los Españoles pintados por sí mismos", aimed to underline national identity through detailed description of common types, both in text and image. Within the project, I have compared English, French, Belgian, Dutch and Spanish sketches with the aim to reconstruct the connections between authors, illustrators, engravers and publishers involved in these national self-portraits. The project also has casted light on how these collections not only served to shape national identity, but also constituted a transnational discursive space in which notions of nationality were played out against one another.