[FRANKLIN (Benjamin)],,
VANLOO (Charles Philippe), after, &
ALIX (Pierre-Michel), engraver.
Francklin [sic].
A RARE PORTRAIT OF FRANKLIN
A handsome copy of this important portrait of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), one of the most important recognisable in eighteenth-century American history: scientist, philosopher, and diplomat.
Charles Philippe Vanloo (1719-1795) painted this portrait while Franklin served as ambassador to France, some time between 1777 and 1785. In the original - held at the American Philosophical Society - Franklin is wearing a fur coat rather than the contemporary suit here. Sellers suggests that the “substitution of a simple gray coat for the fur-trimmed costume of the original was undoubtedly in deference to revolutionary feeling.” It was engraved by Pierre-Michel Alix.
The Boston Athenaeum and the AAS date this image to 1790, the BnF to 1795.
Sellers, Charles, Benjamin Franklin in Portraiture (Yale, 1962) p.394.
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