The American Revolutionary War was an enormously popular cause in France, where the elderly statesman's simplicity of dress and manner were admired. He promoted the treaty of alliance between the fledgling nation and the government of Louis XVI that was signed on February 6, 1778. The installation also explores the processes of image transfer and replication in the 18th century.įranklin arrived in Paris on December 21, 1776, as a commissioner of the American Continental Congress, and lived in nearby Passy until he returned to America in 1785. The image will be familiar to many: it is the likeness that is replicated on the one-hundred-dollar bill. The pastel, which is rarely exhibited and is on loan from the New York Public Library, shows Franklin in the same pose as the painting but wearing a gray, collarless jacket and waistcoat. The painting, which has been in The Met collection for 85 years, is a focal point of the exhibition, along with the preliminary pastel portrait of Franklin, a life study by Duplessis. Portraying Franklin in a red coat with a fur collar and with an astonishingly elaborate frame decorated with his attributes, the oval painting was greatly admired and Duplessis exhibited it at the 1779 Paris Salon. The most famous of these was painted by Joseph Siffred Duplessis (1725–1802), Louis XVI's official portraitist, after Franklin arrived in Paris in 1776 to seek French support for the American war of independence. This exhibition features several works depicting the brilliant writer, inventor, politician, patriot, and statesman Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), who has been the subject of hundreds of portraits.
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