More Images
Benjamin Franklin, Né à Boston le 17 Janvier 1706. Mort à Philadelphie le 19 Avril 1790. Il consacra Ses jours au bonheur des humains, Et fit Tomber les fers des Ses Concitoyens.
Benjamin Franklin, Né à Boston le 17 Janvier 1706. Mort à Philadelphie le 19 Avril 1790. Il consacra Ses jours au bonheur des humains, Et fit Tomber les fers des Ses Concitoyens.

Benjamin Franklin, Né à Boston le 17 Janvier 1706. Mort à Philadelphie le 19 Avril 1790. Il consacra Ses jours au bonheur des humains, Et fit Tomber les fers des Ses Concitoyens.

“He consecrated His days to the happiness of mankind…”


Rare eighteenth-century portrait of Benjamin Franklin printed, and likely drawn by, [Mademoiselle] Citoyenne F. Montalant in the French Revolution era. Montalant’s engraving was made after an engraving by Pierre Adrien Le Beau based upon a drawing by Claude Louis Desrais. Desrais’s drawing, itself, was based upon Cochin’s famous copperplate engraving of Franklin.¹ 

Montalant’s tribute to Benjamin Franklin invoked his legacy to summon patriotic pride among her fellow revolutionaries. The words she chose for the print’s captioned tablet read:

“He consacra Ses jours au bonheur des humains, Et fit Tomber les fers des Ses Concitoyens.”
{“He consecrated His days to the happiness of mankind, And caused the shackles of His countrymen to Fall.”}

Little is known of Montalant’s portrait of Franklin. Sellers only writes “Some 15 years later the Desrais engraving [ca. 1780] was readapted to the taste of the revolutionary era in a popular color print by the Citoyenne F. Montalant.” Sellers’ scant information was taken from a brief entry on Montalant’s career on p.246 of Jules Renouvier’s Histoire de l’art pendant la Révolution 1789-1804… (1886, 1996 reprint ed.).

Renouvier’s identifies Montalant only as Mme. Montalant, describing her as a portraitist and engraver. He lists the present Franklin print, based upon Desrais, and two additional prints of Jean-Paul Marat and Vittorio Alfieri. He also remarks that Montalant also accomplished colored prints, “des sujets familiars du Dutailly.”

Little also seems to be known of Montalent’s work or her personal life. As a foothold, it is recorded that she and her husband, a language instructor, were the middle-class parents of Laure-Cinthie (also seen as “Cinthye”) Montalant (b. 1801), later known as Mme Laure Cinti-Damoreau, and “the leading operatic soprano in Paris during the second quarter of the nineteenth century” (Caswell)

Among institutions, we find only Yale owning this engraving, in two copies. Yale cites Cochin, 65 within Fridenberg’s Catalogue of the engraved portraits of Franklin, an unpublished 3-volume manuscript owned by the Grolier Club. In the trade, the last sold copy that we locate was in the 1907 Mitchell Collection sale, lot 710.


Description: Benjamin Franklin, Né à Boston le 17 Janvier 1706. Mort à Philadelphie le 19 Avril 1790. Il consacra Ses jours au bonheur des humains, Et fit Tomber les fers des Ses Concitoyens.

[Likely Paris. ca. 1795–1799].  Uncolored. Platemark: 9½ x 6¾ inches. Sheet size: 12¼ x 9½ inches. Mounting trace remnants to verso; very good. Archival mat window and mylar sheet.

[3731330]

Note 1. Sellers writes: “Desrais has revised the portrait to accord with the dignity due the representative of a recognized power at the Court of France. The portrait, reversed, is in a similar oval frame, with the same title. A ribbon tied in a bow ornaments the top of the oval. The spectacles have been removed, and a stylish cap lightly trimmed with fur substituted for the shapeless Canadian headgear. Franklin now wears a fur-lined satin dressing gown and a lace shirt-frill. The face is the same, but the other changes are so marked that the piece has occasionally been accepted as a new likeness.”

Of the original Cochin engraving, Sellers noted: “The print is above all a news picture. Because of it, the sensational fact of Franklin’s arrival in France and the sensational costume which so effectively dramatized his role as an envoy from the New World to the Old reached every part of Europe, creating an image of tremendous value to Franklin’s purpose.” (Sellers p228)

“Some 15 years later the Desrais engraving was readapted to the taste of the revolutionary era in a popular color print by an artist known only as Citoyenne F. Montalant.”—Benjamin Franklin. In Search of a Better World accessed online.

Not in Weitenkampf. See Sellers, Franklin in Portraiture, Plate 10 for Le Beau’s engraving, p227–229, specifically, p229.


Price: $3,500.00

See all items in Art & Graphics
See all items by