American Revolution
Lovely Original Mezzotint Portrait of Benjamin Franklin Accomplished in 1778 During the American Revolution
1778-Dated, Portrait of Benjamin Franklin, Four versus of text below bust, "Honneur du nouveau monde et de l'humanité..., Par M. Feutry.", engraved by Justus Chevillet, Paris, France, Choice Crisp Extremely Fine.
Published in 1778, this handsome Portrait shows Franklin seated, wearing a fine suit of high fashion quality clothes, facing slightly left with his face forwards in half-length waist-up profile in oval on pedestal with poem below. This Portrait of Benjamin Franklin, measures 8” x 11.5” (by sight) matted and simple wooden framed to 15.5” x 19.5”, not examined out of frame. Captioned below the large central Oval image, "BENJAMIN FRANKLIN / Ne a Boston, dans la nouvelle Angleterre, le 17 Janv. 1706", above poem in French, labeled below image "Duplessis Pinait Parisiis 1778 / Tire du Cabinet de M. Le Ray de Chaumont & c.a / Chevillet Sculpsit". Juste Chevillet (1729-1802), After the painting by artist Joseph-Siffrède Duplessis (1725-1802). Previously published in: “The American Revolution in drawings and prints; a checklist of 1765-1790 graphics in the Library of Congress” / Compiled by Donald H. Cresswell, with a foreword by Sinclair H. Hitchings. Washington: 1975, no. 63. An example exhibited at: “Benjamin Franklin: In His Own Words,” Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., 2005.
Benjamin Franklin arrived in France in December 1776 to negotiate for essential aid for the American Revolutionary War, he was already a noted celebrity. His simple dress and refusal to wear a wig made an impression in intellectual circles and elsewhere. Franklin lived at Passy in a house provided by Jacques Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont who commissioned a terra-cotta medallion with his profile in 1777 that is also actively collected.