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Lot Essay
Benjamin Franklin was one of America's first ambassadors, although the United States did not officially exist, when he was sent to France in December of 1776 to seek French aid in support of the rebellion against England. One of his most important contacts and supporters was Jacques-Donatien Le Ray, who had established his fortune in shipping and operated an earthenware and glassmaking factory in Chaumont-sur-Loire. His friendship with Franklin was critical in winning French support for the American cause and Le Ray further assisted the American war effort in organizing and coordinating the American-French naval fleet, including the refitting of the warship USS Bonhomme Richard, used by Captain John Paul Jones. Le Ray commissioned the artist Jean-Baptiste Nini to create a terra-cotta relief portrait of Franklin which his perhaps his best known image. 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 tobe 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."
"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 tobe 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."