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Title:Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790), after a Painting by Greuze of 1777
Artist:Charles Paul Jérôme de Bréa (French, ca. 1739–1820)
Date:1777
Medium:Ivory
Dimensions:Oval, 3 3/8 x 2 3/4 in. (85 x 68 mm)
Classification:Miniatures
Credit Line:Gift of J. William Middendorf II, 1968
Accession Number:68.222.9
The miniature is copied from the portrait which Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805) made of Benjamin Franklin after he arrived in France as plenipotentiary to the court of Versailles. It follows the version in oil (American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia) commissioned by Élie de Beaumont, an eminent French lawyer, in showing a green coat and lace jabot rather than the blue coat and linen jabot of the preliminary pastel sketch, which dates to June 1777 (U.S. Department of State, Washington, D.C.).
Perhaps owing to later retouching the signature had been misread by Sellers (1962) as de broux. In 1995, however, Bodo Hofstetter proposed the attribution to Charles Paul Jérôme de Bréa, pointing out a similar, signed enamel by De Bréa representing Franklin (Leo R. Schidlof, The Miniature in Europe, Graz, 1964, vol. 1, p. 108; vol. 3, pl. 93, fig. 165). That enamel was sold by Bohn, London, in 1885, and its present whereabouts is unknown. The resemblance between the two works is compelling.
[2016; adapted from Reynolds and Baetjer 1996]
Inscription: Signed and dated (right): de Bréa / 1777
Michel Bernstein, Issy-les-Moulineaux (in 1958); [Kennedy Galleries, New York, until 1960]; J. William Middendorf II, Little Compton, R.I. (1960–68)
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "European Miniatures in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," November 5, 1996–January 5, 1997, no. 51.
Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Portraits of Benjamin Franklin," February 15–April 20, 1997, no catalogue.
Charles Coleman Sellers. Benjamin Franklin in Portraiture. New Haven, 1962, p. 303, no. 9, as by Louis de Broux, after Greuze; states that it was in the Bernstein collection in 1958 and calls it "apparently the earliest of many 'Franklins' of the Greuze type".
Bodo Hofstetter. Letter to Katharine Baetjer. June 19, 1995, attributes it to Charles Paul Jérôme de Bréa, pointing out that Schidlof publishes another portrait of Franklin by this artist in "The Miniature in Europe," Graz, 1964, vol. 1, p. 108, pl. 93, fig. 165.
Graham Reynolds with the assistance of Katharine Baetjer. European Miniatures in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1996, pp. 9, 11, 93–94, no. 51, colorpl. 51 and ill. p. 94.
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