Lot 16: JOSEPH WRIGHT (1756-1793)Portrait of Benjamin Franklinoil on canvas31 5/8 x

25 1/8 in. (80.5 x 63.8 cm.)PROVENANCEEstate of Jesse Judson Claverack, New YorkRobert Fulton LudlowRobert LivingstonRELATED LITERATUREC. C. Sellers, Benjamin Franklin in Portraiture, New Haven, 1962, pp. 150-154; pp. 414-426Joseph Wright was originally trained under the distinguished Benjamin West and John Hoppner in London and he exhibited at the Royal Academy at the age of 24. From London he travelled to Paris in 1782, where he was commissioned by Richard Oswald to paint a portrait of benjamin Franklin. Oswald, the representative of the King of England to the peace negotiations in France at the end of the Revolutionary War, decided on Wright to paint a portrait of Franklin as a token of respect and good will.Franklin's popularity and position of authority made it a considerable honor to be chosen and Wright must have approached the project enthusiastically. Unfortunately, the subject was very reluctant to spend time sitting for the portrait. Charles Coleman Sellers writes "He encountered but one major difficulty. As usual, Franklin insisted in a friendly way that he wanted him to make a copy of the picture on the wall. Joseph had to make out as others had done, but he had at least a better opportunity to study his subject's face." (Sellers, p. 152).As a result, it seems probable that Wright, like other Franklin portraitists, based his portraits on the famous pastel, executed in 1778, by Joseph Siffred Duplessis. Wright added his own artistic stamp with changes in the color of the sitter's face bringing Duplessis' image, of four years earlier, into a more contemporary portrayal.The current example is one of seven known portraits of Franklin by Joseph Wright. One, commissioned by a Mr. Whitford, was lost in a shipwreck on the way to America. The other five versions are in the permanent collections of Yale University Art Gallery (Oswald's Version), the Boston Public Library, the Royal Society of London, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.In a letter dated April 17, 1971, Charles Coleman Sellers states that this portrait, like the others, was painted in France in 1782. A photocopy of this letter accompanies the lot.