File:Giovanni Battista Nini - Portrait of Benjamin Franklin - 1940.578 - Cleveland Museum of Art.tif
Original file (4,768 × 4,575 pixels, file size: 62.43 MB, MIME type: image/tiff)
Summary
Portrait of Benjamin Franklin
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| Artist |
Giovanni Battista Nini |
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| Title |
Portrait of Benjamin Franklin |
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| Object type | sculpture | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Description |
Scholars debate whether Nini met Benjamin Franklin personally or based the nine versions of his portrait on drawings by artist Thomas Walpole (British, 1755-1840). In this particular cast, Nini presents Franklin with a fur hat, which may be an allusion to French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, suggesting a comparison between the inventor and the philosopher and their roles in revolutionary politics on both sides of the Atlantic. Nini copied Franklin's fur hat from a portrait of Rousseau by Allan Ramsay (Scottish, 1713-1784). The small crest below Franklin's left shoulder shows a bolt of lightning striking an iron bar held by a hand-- a reference to Franklin's discovery of the lightning rod and electricity. --Molly Bloom (August 2013) |
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| Date | 1777 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Medium | Terracotta | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Dimensions | Diameter: 11.4 cm (4 1/2 in.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Collection |
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| Current location |
European Painting and Sculpture |
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| Accession number |
1940.578 |
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| Place of creation | France, 18th century | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Credit line | Bequest of James Parmelee | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Source/Photographer | https://clevelandart.org/art/1940.578 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Licensing
 
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This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. |
| The person who associated a work with this deed has dedicated the work to the public domain by waiving all of their rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.
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This file was donated to Wikimedia Commons as part of a project with the Cleveland Museum of Art. See the Open Access at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
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File history
Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.
| Date/Time | Thumbnail | Dimensions | User | Comment | |
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| current | 03:48, 6 April 2019 |  | 4,768 × 4,575 (62.43 MB) | Madreiling | pattypan 18.02 |
File usage
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