Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790)

Artist Joseph-Siffred Duplessis French, 1725–1802

Datecirca 1779

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions27 1/2 x 21 1/2 in. (69.8 x 54.6 cm)
Frame: 35 3/4 x 29 1/2 in. (90.8 x 74.9 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineGift of the North Carolina Citizens Association

Object numberG.75.26.1

On View

Not on view

ProvenanceThe original owner may have been the Marquis or the Marquise de Flamarens. First recorded owner, Isaac Cox Barnet, American Consul at Paris, who acquired it either by purchase or through his marriage to Mlle. Saulnier de la Marine, daughter of the Marquise de Flamarens and the Comte de Provence; to Mr. Barnet’s daughter, Caroline, Comtess de Mastin; to her daughter, Alix Armande de Mastin, until 1891; to her cousin, Etienne Bessot de Lamothe; to Gilbert Bessot de Lamothe; sold to Hirschl and Adler Galleries, 1973 through Guy Laudmer (auction house); purchased by the North Carolina Citizen’s Association for NCMA, October 1975.Published ReferencesBoston Daily Advertiser (October 1, 1858).

Jules Belleudy, Peintre du Roi (Chartes: De L'Imprimerie Durand, 1913), 86-87, illus. 80.

Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, no. 100 (1956).

North Carolina 34, no. 3 (March 1976), 18-19, 21-22.

Edgar Peters Bowron, ed., Introduction to the Collections (Chapel Hill: published for the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, by The University of North Carolina Press, 1983), illus. (b-w) 152.

Introduction to the Collections, rev. ed. (Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1992), illus. (b-w) 134.

Anna Upchurch, "Private Support for a Public Collection," North Carolina Museum of Art Preview (Spring 1993), illus. (b-w) 15.

Arthur S. Marks, "A Franklin Portrait by William Dunlap," Southeastern College Art Conference Preview 13, no. 2 (1997), illus. (b-w) 149

Katharine Baetjer, et al, “Benjamin Franklin, Ambassador to France: Portraits by Joseph Siffred Duplessis,” in Metropolitan Museum Journal 52 (2017), mentioned 65, illus. (color) 66, fig. 11.

“A signed frame by Jean Chérin,” The Frame Blog, posted at:
https://www.theframeblog.com/2017/03/27/a-signed-frame-by-jean-cherin/
illus. (color).
Exhibition HistoryPhiladelphia, PA, American Philosophical Society, "Exhibition of Portraits Marking the 250th Anniversary of the Society's Founders," 1956, illus. 18.

New York, NY, Hirschl and Adler Galleries, "Retrospective of a Gallery, Twenty Years," 1973, illus. no. 36.

Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "Recent Acquisitions," September 25-October 23, 1977.

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