Benjamin Franklin
Medium
Mezzotint on tan paper
Dimensions
sheet (trimmed to plate): 6 3/8 x 5 1/8 in. (16.2 x 13 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Charles Allen Munn, 1924
Accession Number
24.90.52
Tags
Art Historical Context
This 1787 mezzotint by Charles Willson Peale captures Benjamin Franklin in a dignified bust-length portrait that reflects the statesman’s enduring role as a symbol of American independence. Created just months after the Constitutional Convention, the print appeared at a moment when Franklin’s image circulated widely to celebrate the new nation’s founding ideals. Peale, a leading American artist of the Revolutionary era, had painted Franklin from life on several occasions; this print likely reproduces one of those painted likenesses for broader distribution. Mezzotint was prized in the eightee...
About the Artist
Charles Willson Peale|Benjamin Franklin · 1741–1827
Charles Willson Peale (1741–1827) was an American painter, museum founder, naturalist, and inventor who became the most important American portraitist of the Revolutionary era and a central figure in the cultural life of the young republic. Born in Queen Anne's County, Maryland, he initially trained as a saddler before turning to painting, studying briefly with John Singleton Copley in Boston and ...