![[FRANKLIN, Benjamin]. Le Docteur Francklin couronné par la Liberté. Aquatint engraving by Abbé Jean Richard Claude de Saint-Non after Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), [Paris, 1778). Folio (14 x 10½ in). Aquatint engraving, the sheet with full margins and deckle edges, matted and framed.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2011/NYR/2011_NYR_02514_0167_000(franklin_benjamin_le_docteur_francklin_couronne_par_la_liberte_aquatin083026).jpg?w=1)
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[FRANKLIN, Benjamin]. Le Docteur Francklin couronné par la Liberté. Aquatint engraving by Abbé Jean Richard Claude de Saint-Non after Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), [Paris, 1778). Folio (14 x 10½ in). Aquatint engraving, the sheet with full margins and deckle edges, matted and framed.
FRANKLIN BY FRAGONARD. Saint-Non, a talented amateur, was an early proponent of the aquatint process and its facility to render painterly gradations. The Abbé invited Franklin to his home for a demonstration and later wrote that "this little piece has been made in the space of one morning and solely to convey this celebrated man a conception of engraving in this technique" (Sellers, p.285). In a dramatic scene, a bust of Franklin (that by Caffieri) surmounts a globe with the continent of "Amerique" visible; bundled fasces lie at the bottom, while the figure of Liberty, a woman in billowing robes, holding aloft two olive-leaf wreaths, approaches from the clouds to crown Franklin. At the top, in rays of light, is a liberty cap on a pole. A lovely allegorical print in a fine impression. Sellers, Franklin in Portraiture, pp.284-286.
FRANKLIN BY FRAGONARD. Saint-Non, a talented amateur, was an early proponent of the aquatint process and its facility to render painterly gradations. The Abbé invited Franklin to his home for a demonstration and later wrote that "this little piece has been made in the space of one morning and solely to convey this celebrated man a conception of engraving in this technique" (Sellers, p.285). In a dramatic scene, a bust of Franklin (that by Caffieri) surmounts a globe with the continent of "Amerique" visible; bundled fasces lie at the bottom, while the figure of Liberty, a woman in billowing robes, holding aloft two olive-leaf wreaths, approaches from the clouds to crown Franklin. At the top, in rays of light, is a liberty cap on a pole. A lovely allegorical print in a fine impression. Sellers, Franklin in Portraiture, pp.284-286.