Details
Creator Dumont, François, 1751-1831.
Title Snuffbox with Portrait of Benjamin Franklin.
Publisher Paris
Date 1779
Physical Description Watercolor on ivory, tortoise shell ; 2 3/8 inches (diameter).
Is referenced by Sellers, Charles Coleman. Benjamin Franklin in Portraiture. New Haven: Yale University, 1962.
Winegrad, Dily Pegler, ed., The Intellectual World of Benjamin Franklin: An American Encyclopaedist. Philadelphia: Smith-Edwards-Dunlap, 1990, p. 84.
Talbott, Page, ed., Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World. New Haven and London: Yale University, 2005, p. 216.
Schiff, Stacy. A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2005.
Soltis, Carol Eaton. Patriots and Presidents: Philadelphia Portrait Miniatures, 1760-1860. Philadelphia: s.n., 2009, p. 78-79.
Notes Tortoiseshell snuffbox with a portrait of Benjamin Franklin on the lid. Miniature portrait is framed with a simple ovolo moulding of gold. It was commissioned by Franklin as a gift to Georgiana Shipley (1756-1806), the daughter of Jonathan Shipley, bishop of St. Asaph. Georgiana Shipley wrote to Franklin on May 1st requesting a portrait miniature, “Numberless are the prints & medals we have seen of you, but none that I quite approve, should you have a good picture painted at Paris, a miniature copied from it, would make me the happiest of beings, & next to that, a lock of your own dear grey hair would give me the greatest pleasure…” Franklin sent the snuffbox and lock of hair to which Shipley replied on Feb. 3, 1780, “How shall I sufficiently express my raptures on recieving (sic) your dear delightfull & most valuable present. The pleasure I felt was encreased if possible at the sight of the beloved little lock of Hair, I kissed both that & the picture 1000 times: the miniature is admirably painted, the Artist (whose name I wish to learn) appears inferior to none we have in England: as for the resemblance, it is my very own dear Doctor Franklin himself…”
Gift of Stuart Karu, 2009.
Exhibited in: University of Pennsylvania's exhibition, The Intellectual World of Benjamin Franklin (1990); Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World (2005-2007); Patriots and Presidents: Philadelphia Portrait Miniatures, 1760-1860 (April 2009).
Subject Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790 -- Portraits.
Shipley, Georgiana, d. 1806.
Snuff boxes and bottles.
Friendship.
Genre Snuffbox.
Associated name Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790, former owner.
Associated name Shipley, Georgiana, d. 1806, former owner.
Location OBJ 879
Accession number OBJ 879