Description
Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, printer, inventor, and future Founding Father of the United States, sits with his books and papers and a bust of Isaac Newton in this 1767 portrait by Scottish artist David Martin. Franklin had gone to England to testify against the Stamp Act of 1765; while there, Franklins friend Robert Alexander, an Edinburgh wine merchant, commissioned this portrait, which was exhibited in London in the spring of 1767. The subject was so pleased by his likeness that he had this slightly revised version of the original shipped back to Philadelphia.
