Images(2)

Mold for a Benjamin Franklin Medallion

Date1777

Maker Jean Baptiste Nini (d. 1785)

OriginEurope, France, Blois, Chaumont-sur-Loire

MediumLimestone, ceramic, and putty

DimensionsMold diameter: 5" Mold height: 1" Diamater of design cavity: 111 mm Block: 7 3/4" x 7 7/8" x 4"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, Lasser Numismatics Fund

Object number2017-249

DescriptionComposite mold or die for the manufacture of Nini's terra cotta Benjamin Franklin portrait medallions consisting of a plain limestone block mounted, in an unknown fashion, with an earthenware die. The latter, of thick reddish earthenware bears the incuse bust of Franklin wearing a fur cap, the retrograde legend * B * FRANKLIN * * AMERICAIN *, within a complex turned border. On the truncation of the bust is a coat of arms in the form of a coroneted oval cartouche resting on palm fronds. Within the cartouche is a vignette of a hand holding a rod, being struck by a bolt of lightning emanating from a cloud.The date 1777 appears in the field below the bust.
Label TextThe Benjamin Franklin mania that engulfed France helped secure the financial and military aid of that nation, which in turn led to victory over the British in the Revolutionary War. Amongst the goods at the center of this phenomenon were the celebrated terra cotta medallions, bearing Franklin's portrait, distributed throughout Europe and America. They were the work of Italian artist Giovanni Battista (Jean Baptiste) Nini, who had so impressed the wealthy Jacques-Donatien Leray de Chaumont that the latter invited Nini to live and work at Chaumont-sur-Loire, his estate outside of Blois, as an artist in residence. There, Chaumont had the facilities necessary to manufacture such works on an industrial scale, including a pottery complete with a humungous stone and brick kiln. Nini received a generous annuity from Chaumont, and the two split the profits from the sale of the medallic portraits evenly.

Chaumont also played host to another of the era's bright lights, when he invited Franklin, then acting as the United States' Ambassador and Minister to France, to take up residence at his estate in Passy, situated between Paris and Versailles. In short order this new guest, sporting an attention-getting fur hat and an intentionally plain wardrobe, became the focus of not only the Court of King Louis XVI, but Nini as well.

While it is unknown how many thousands of Franklin medallions Nini produced before his death in 1785, they were of at least 26 different varieties. Some were of a smaller size like those produced with this mold, while others were markedly larger. Across the spectrum we see Franklin either bare-headed or wearing symbolic headgear like the ancient Phyrigian or "Liberty Cap." On others we see him appearing more familiar, bedecked in his trade-mark spectacles. Franklin, amazed by the craze created in part by Nini's creations, wrote the following to his daughter Sarah Bache, on June 3,1779;

"The clay medallion of me 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 lids of snuff boxes, 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 every where) have made your father’s face as well known as that of the moon, so that he durst not do any thing that would oblige him to run away, as his phiz would discover him wherever he should venture to show it. 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."

Although Colonial Williamsburg's mold produced one of the common "for sale" types, only a handful of examples produced from it are currently known, including those in the collections of The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and the Château de Chaumont in France. With this variety, we see Franklin, with bobbed hair, wearing a simple suit and his famed fur cap. Its French legend reads "B FRANKLIN AMERICAIN," punctuated by five five-petalled florets. Nini's signature and an armorial device referencing Franklin’s experiments with electricity appear on the truncation of the bust, along with the date "1777," which is duplicated in the field below.

Enduring financial reversals as a result of the American Revolution, Chaumont suffered further when his assets, including his beloved Château, and presumably Nini's molds, were confiscated by the French Revolutionary government 1789. Sold a number of times in the 19th c., Château Chaumont was acquired by the French government in 1938, and is now a museum. At an earlier point in time Nini's Franklin medallion molds left the estate, including this example, which came from the collection of the Beulay family of Blois.
ProvenanceChâteau Chaumont-sur-Loire, and the Beulay family of Blois. Rouillac Auctions, June 13, 2016, lot 352.