Jean-Baptiste Nini (Urbino 1717 – 1786 Chaumont-sur-Loire)

Portrait of Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Signed, dated and inscribed 'B. FRANKLIN AMERICAIN/NINI/F 1777'

Terracotta, circular, diameter 12 cm (4.7 inch)

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Clay terracotta medallions of Benjamin Franklin were among the earliest portraits of the statesman available in France. Their maker, Nini, worked for Jacques Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont, Franklin's pro-American landlord and the present portrait is based on a drawing by Thomas Walpole (1755–1840). Nini captured both the likeness and the spirit of Franklin during his celebrated diplomatic mission to France, where he worked to secure French support for American independence. Franklin sent one example to his daughter Sarah and her husband, Richard Bache, who thought the medallion a better likeness than the print by Augustin de Saint-Aubin, which Franklin also sent them.

In June of 1779 Franklin wrote to his daughter Deborah in Philadelphia: “The clay medallion you say you gave to Mr. Hopkinson was the first of the kind made in France. A variety of others have been made since of different sizes; some to be set in the lids of snuffboxes, and some so small as to be worn in rings; and the numbers sold are incredible. These, with the pictures, busts, and prints, (of which copies upon copies are spread everywhere), have made your father's face as well known as that of the moon ... It is said by learned etymologists, that the name doll, for the images children play with, is derived from the word IDOL. From the number of dolls now made of him, he may be truly said, in that sense, to be i-doll-ized in this country.”

Born in Urbino, Italy, Nini was a medallist and engraver. Interested only in portraits, Nini executed likenesses of his friends, who included many of the most significant figures of the period, including Benjamin Franklin (1777), Louis XV (1770), Maria-Theresa, Empress of Austria (1769 and 1770) and Voltaire (1780), among others. Working only in terracotta from a carved wax mould, Nini modelled about one hundred portraits, but was able to retain the model and produce a large number of medallions.¹ Various other examples are known, including terracotta impressions in the Metropolitan Museum in New York² and the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia.

SOLD

1. See S. Scher in Jane Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, London 1986, vol. 23, p. 156.
2. Inv. no. 83.2.175 (Gift of William H. Huntington, 1883).