* Joseph-Siffred Duplessis Carpentras 1725 - 1802 Versailles

H. van der Burch, the artist, said to be included in his auction in 1850, but not in his studio sale;
there purchased by W.H. Robertson, Vice Consul of the United States, Paris, from whom acquired for $1,000 by
Charles Augustus Stetson (1810-1888), manager of the Astor House Hotel, New York, and then retiring to his house at Swampscott, Massachusetts, by whom sold in 1876 for $1,000 to the present owners.

Possibly Paris, Salon, 1801;
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Academy, Loan Exhibition of Historical Portraits, December 1, 1887- January 15, 1888, cat. no. 159;
Philadelphia, American Philosophical Society and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, March 7- April 23, 1906, p. 3, cat. no 5.

Bowen, History of the Centennial Celebration of the Inauguration of George Washington, 1892, vol. 3, p. 449;
Century of Cyclopedia of Names, circa 1911, p. 8;
J.C. Oswald, Benjamin Franklin in Oil and Bronze, New York 1926, opposite p. 10;
C.C. Sellers, Benjamin Franklin in Portraiture, New Haven 1962, p. 260 cat. no. 20;
A.N.B. Garvan and C. A. Wojtowicz, Catalogue of the Green Tree Collection, Philadelphia 1977, p, 55, reproduced.

The present portrait is an autograph repetition with some possible studio participation of one of the first and most important paintings made by a French artist after Franklin’s arrival in Europe, the portrait by Joseph Siffred Duplessis, exhibited in the Salon of 1779.  That version, signed and dated 1778 is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and was commissioned by Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont.  Chaumont was a great friend of Franklin’s and had rented him a house at Passy, near Paris, next to his own.  Duplessis, at that point one of the leading fashionable portrait painters of the day, was asked to paint a likeness of Franklin for Chaumont’s own collection, no doubt to highlight the owner’s own special relationship with the American sage.  Franklin’s fame remained so significant that Duplessis continued to paint the image even after the American's death;  Duplessis even exhibited another Portrait of Franklin in the Salon of 1801.  The engraving of the Salon of that year by Monsaldy and Devisme shows the portrait of the same type as the present canvas, with a fur collar, and matted or painted as an oval, although framed in a rectangular frame.  Sommers (see Literature below, p. 250) has tentatively proposed identifying that painting with a picture formerly in the collection of the Earl of Ilchester, but that identification must remain speculative at best, and could equally be the present example.  That Franklin was considered worthy of such special attention is well documented.  For example, a portrait of Franklin by Greuze sold in these rooms in 1998 (now private collection, United States) was commissioned in 1777 by Jean-Baptiste Jacques Elie de Beaumont for a series of famous ancient and modern figures to decorate his library.

Benjamin Franklin landed at the port of Rouen in 1776 an instant celebrity as Ambassador of Great Britain’s rebellious Colonies in America to the French court.  His reputation as a writer and inventor had proceeded him, and his status as one of the senior members of the Continental Congress and one of most respected of the revolutionaries fighting against France’s perennial enemy secured his place in Paris society.  His image soon began to appear in various media on many levels of artistic merit, from Houdon’s masterpiece in marble of 1779 (see for example the version in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Figure 1) to the motifs painted onto ceramic dinnerware or medelled into more pricey biscuit figurines (see for example Niderviller Biscuit Porcelain Figure Group of Benjamin Franklin and Louis XVI, from circa 1780-85, Figure 2).

In the many images portrayed, Franklin is usually depicted in very simple attire.  His hair is undressed and unpowdered, in stark contrast to the highly elaborate, curled and beribboned hairstyles then favoured by fashionable French society.  Rustic and new world touches, such as fur cap (later adopted by French ladies and dubbed à la Franklin) and collars (as in the current portrait) remind the viewer that Franklin is a “man of  wilderness America," and a figure of Rousseau-esque merit.  It is no wonder, given the prevailing cultural and political climate in France at the time that images of Franklin were highly desirable.

The admiration for Franklin sometimes reached rather giddy, and to the modern ear quite silly, heights.  Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours writing to the Margrave of Baden about Duplessis'  portrait in the salon of 1779 noted that "Ce n’est pas assez de dire que Franklin est beau; il faut dire qu’il a été un des plus beaux hommes du monde et qu’on n’en connaît pas de son âge qui lui soit égal.  Toutes ses proportions annoncent la vigeur d’Hercule et, soixante et quinze ans, il a encore de la souplesse et de la légèreté….On a mis au bas de son portrait cette laconique inscription: Vir.  Il n’y a pas un trait de sa figure ni de sa vie qui la démente [It is not enough to say that Franklin is handsome, rather one must say that he was one of the most handsome men in the world, and that one does not know of anyone of this era that is his equal.  All of his proportions betray the vigor of Hercules, and at 75 years of age, he still has a litheness and lightness... They have placed beneath his portrait this laconic inscription: Vir [Lat. “Man”].  There is no aspect to his form nor to his life that contradicts this]."

Although surely a compliment to his vanity, Franklin did not enjoy sitting for his portrait.  He noted wearily “I have, at the request of friends, sat so much and so often to painters and statuaries that I am perfectly sick of it.  I know of nothing so tedious as sitting in one fixed posture."  He seems to have loved the Duplessis portrait, however, and it has become the most famous image of Franklin, even used as the source for his portrait on the $100 bill.  Duplessis reprised the image a number of times, even much later in his career.