Benjamin Franklin

CC0 Public Domain Designation

Prints and Drawings

c. 1778

Jean Honoré Fragonard
French, 1732-1806

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Jean Honoré Fragonard
Title: Benjamin Franklin
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1773–1783
Medium: Brush and brown ink and brown wash on ivory laid paper, laid down on ivory laid paper
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower left: "B. Franklin"
Dimensions: 27.8 × 23.9 cm (11 × 9 7/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Mrs. Charles Netcher as a memorial to Charles Netcher II
Reference Number: 1933.806
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/87107/manifest.json

Commemorative Catalogue of the Exhibition of French art, 1200-1900: Royal Academy of Arts, London, January-March 1932 (London: Oxford University Press, H. Milford, 1933), cat. 681, pp. 147, pl. 173 (ill.).
Carl O. Schniewind, Drawings Old and New (Chicago, 1946), no. 17.
The American Teacher Journal, XXXI:4 (January 1947), Illustration on Cover.
Bulletin of the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, VIII:1 (Fall 1950), pp. 52-53, 65, no. 8 (ill.).
Masterpieces in The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1952), n.p.
A.T.E. Gardiner, “Huntington’s Franklin”, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, XV:1 (Summer 1956), pp. 16-17.
Louis Reau, Fragonard: Sa Vie et Son Oeuvre (Brussells, 1956), pp. 210-11, fig. 138.
Alexandre Ananoff, L’Oeuvre Dessiné de Jean-Honoré Fragonard, vol. 1 (Paris, 1961), no. 138, fig. 60.
Charles Coleman Sellers, Benjamin Franklin in Portraiture (New Haven and London, 1962), pp. 310-311.
Herold Joachim, “Trois siècles de portraits dessinés à l’Art Institute de Chicago,” L’Oeil, 255 (October 1976), p. 3, no. 2 (ill.)
Harold Joachim, French Drawings and Sketchbooks of the Eighteenth Century (Chicago, 1977), pp. 26-27, no. 1E2.
Pierre Rosenberg, “Franklin and Fragonard,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 150:4 (December 2006), pp. 587 and 589, fig. 15.

London, Royal Academy of Art, “French Art: 1200-1900,” 1932, cat. 797.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Drawings Old and New,” 1946, p. 13, cat. 17, pl. VIII, cat. by Carl O. Schniewind.
Oberlin, Ohio, Allan Memorial Art Museum, “Master Drawings of the 18th Century from France and Italy,” 1951.
New York, Wildenstein and Company, “Master Drawings from The Art Institute of Chicago,” October 17-November 30, 1963, n.p., cat. 61.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Selected Works of 18th Century French Art in the Collections of The Art Institute of Chicago,” January 24-March 28, 1976, p. 68, cat. 61 (ill.).
Paris, Musée du Louvre, “Dessins français de l’Art Institute de Chicago de Watteau à Picasso,” October 15, 1976-January 17, 1977, n.p., cat. 19 (ill.).
Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Städtische Galerie im Städelschen Kunstinstitut, “Französische Zeichnungen aus dem Art Institute of Chicago,” February 10-April 10, 1977, pp. 46-47, cat. 18 (ill.).
Philadelphia Museum of Art: “In Pursuit of Genius: Jean-Antoine Houdon and the Sculpted Portraits of Benjamin Franklin,” May 13-July 30, 2006, fig. 10, (ill.), p. 8 [brochure].

Albert Meyer, Paris, by 1932 [according to London 1932]. Sold by Jacques Seligmann and Company, New York, to Mrs. Charles Netcher, April 29, 1933 [invoice]; given to the Art Institute, 1933

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

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