Portrait of Benjamin Franklin

1779 · Private collection

portrait

This painting is one of the numerous existing versions of Duplessis's Franklin portraits. Most of these portraits fall into two categories: the 'fur coat' type as seen in the original version in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, new York, and the latter 'grey coat' type, of which the present painting is an example. The prototype for the grey coat portrait is a pastel, executed by Duplessis in 1783, and now located in the New York Public Library.

About the Artist

Joseph-Siffred Duplessis

1725 – 1802

Duplessis was a French painter who studied with Subleyras in Rome 1745-49. Returning to France he pursued a career as portraitist in Paris, while retaining close links to his home town of Carpentras. After 1774 Duplessis won favour at the court of the new king, Louis XVI, and painted portraits of the entire royal family, as well as of Gluck (1775, Vienna) and Benjamin Franklin (1779). While in Paris, he dispatched altar paintings to the cathedral of Carpentras, as well as decorative landscape paintings to the local hospital. He retired to Carpentras from 1792 to 1796.

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