A rare sketch from life of Benjamin Franklin playing chess in Paris, (1776-1783), Attributed to Benjamin Franklin Bache (1769-1798)

Pencil on paper, inscribed, “Dr. Franklin playing at chesf (sic).”   Accompanied by backing sheet  bearing printed paper label from Goupil's, and  printed paper description of work, possibly an excerpt from an auction catalog.

7 in. x 4 3/8 in.  

Provenance

According to accompanying lables, the first recorded owner of the sketch was John Read (1769-1854) of Philadelphia, a prominent lawyer, bank president and politician. He was appointed by President John Adams as agent general of the United States under the Jay Treaty, thence by descent in the Read family to Major Harmon Pumpelly Read (1860-1925).
Jorom-Derem, Paris, 2009
Private collection.

The Read family papers are in the collection of the Library Company of Philadelphia. The abstract to the collection describes the  family, “The Read family consistently played an important role in American government and politics from the time that George Read, a Delaware resident, signed the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Throughout the 17th to 19th centuries, the Reads served as lawyers, judges, politicians, generals, consul-generals and foreign ministers.” 

Footnotes

In late 1776, Benjamin Franklin arrived in France on the all-important diplomatic mission of securing French support for American Independence. Franklin's two grandsons William Templeton Franklin (1760-1823) and Benjamin Franklin Bache (1769-1798) accompanied him. All three would return to America in 1785.

At least two pencil sketches of Franklin from life by Benjamin Franklin Bache are known. One is found in the collection of the American Philosophical Society, and may be viewed on the Frankliniana Database maintained by the Phillips Museum, Franklin & Marshall College at franklinartifacts@fandm.edu. The other sketch remains in the collection of a descendant.

Franklin was among the first Americans known to play chess and to write about chess. His famous essay, “The Morales of Chess,” was first published in 1786. In Philadelphia, Franklin lamented the scarcity of American players in a letter of June 20, 1752, regarding the death of David Martin (1696-1751), “my principal antagonist at Chess is dead and the few remaining players here are very indifferent.”    

Among the players Franklin ironically enjoyed in his diplomatic missions to England, 1757-1762 and 1764-1775, was Lady Caroline Howe, the sister of Admiral Richard Howe and General William Howe- who would serve as leaders in the British military efforts against American Independence.

In France, Franklin found many chess enthusiasts in friends and neighbors-his favorite being Madame Brillon de Jouy (1744-1824), with whom he maintained a long and intense flirtation. The diary of John Adams, who was sent to France with Arthur Lee in 1778 to aid Franklin in negotiating an alliance, cites chess as one of the many annoying habits he finds in Franklin's French life style. Thomas Jefferson, however, recognized the beneficial diplomatic aspects of Franklin's passion for chess in a letter of December 4, 1818 to Robert Welsh, “When Dr. Franklin went to France on his revolutionary mission, his eminence as a philosopher, his venerable appearance , and the cause on which he was sent, rendered him extremely popular. For all ranks and conditions of men there, entered warmly into the American interest. He was therefore feasted and invited to all the court parties. At these he sometimes met the old Duchess of Broubon, who being a chess player about his force, they very generally played together. Happening once to put her king into prise, the Doctor took it. ‘Ah’ says she, ‘we do not take kings so,’ ‘We do in America,’ says the Doctor.”