Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Painted in France, this portrait projects the unpretentious image that Benjamin Franklin cultivated during his tenure as an American diplomat. Duplessis captures the charming manner, thick belly, modest style of dress, and loose, unpowdered hair that helped elevate Franklin into something of a celebrity in refined Parisian circles. Duplessis’s painting was one of three portraits of Franklin exhibited to acclaim at the Salon of 1779. After less than three years in France, the American ambassador had been portrayed in prints, paintings, busts, on porcelain, and in medallions that traveled across Europe and the Atlantic. The sudden ubiquity of Franklin’s likeness led him to quip that his face was “as well known as that of the moon.”