American Revolution
Benjamin Franklin Silhouette Reverse Painting on Glass
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Reverse Painting on Glass shown Wearing His Signature Fur Hat, Extremely Fine.
c. 1770s to early 1800s, this decorative Reverse Painting on Glass presents a silhouette of Benjamin Franklin against a light blue silk background. Franklin appears framed by an ornate, oval painted in black on glass, unsigned, measuring 5.75" x 3.75 (by sight) housed in an old, molded wooden frame to an overall size of 9.5" x 7.75." Franklin appears with the fur cap he wore when he returned to France in 1776, which caused quite a sensation among "... the powder'd heads of Paris" (as he wrote to a female friend). The painting itself appears to be in excellent condition with a couple of tiny voids at his back; the early gold gilt plaster inner liner of the frame is chipped and lacking some thin upper pieces (see photo). This early Benjamin Franklin Silhouette Reverse Painting on Glass makes a nice display piece, specially if placed into a new archival frame.
In December 1776, Franklin was dispatched to France as commissioner for the United States. He took with him as secretary his 16-year-old grandson, William Temple Franklin. They lived in a home in the Parisian suburb of Passy, donated by Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont, who supported the United States. Franklin remained in France until 1785. He conducted the affairs of his country toward the French nation with great success, which included securing a critical military alliance in 1778 and negotiating the Treaty of Paris (1783).



Among his associates in France was Honorable Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeaue a French Revolutionary writer, orator and statesman who in early 1791 would be elected president of the National Assembly. In July 1784, Franklin met with Mirabeau and contributed anonymous materials that the Frenchman used in his first signed work: Considerations sur l'ordre de Cincinnatus. The publication was critical of the Society of the Cincinnati, established in the United States. Franklin and Mirabeau thought of it as a "noble order", inconsistent with the egalitarian ideals of the new republic.



During his stay in France, Benjamin Franklin was active as a Freemason, serving as Venerable Master of the Lodge Les Neuf Saurs from 1779 until 1781. He was the 106th member of the Lodge.



In 1784, when Franz Mesmer began to publicize his theory of "animal magnetism" which was considered offensive by many, Louis XVI appointed a commission to investigate it. These included the chemist Antoine Lavoisier, the physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, the astronomer Jean Sylvain Bailly, and Benjamin Franklin. In 1781, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.