Object of the Month: Terracotta Portrait Medallion of Benjamin Franklin

In a letter to his daughter on June 3, 1779, Benjamin Franklin wrote about the wide dissemination of his likeness through prints, busts, and pictures.  He believed his face had become “as well known as that of the moon.” This letter was written on the heels of Franklin’s new-found stardom in France, which was documented and bolstered by the production of portrait medallions. The BCMA has acquired one such example, created in 1777 by the Italian sculptor Jean Baptiste Nini (1717–1786).

Born in Urbino, Jean Baptiste Nini (also known as Giovanni Battista Nini) was trained as a sculptor at the Accademia Clementina in Bologna, Italy. He briefly worked with glass and crystal engraving after moving to Spain in 1740. By 1758, he settled in Paris and, from there, enjoyed a prolific and successful career as an engraver. Working in terracotta with wax molds, Nini produced a great number of portrait medallions depicting prominent figures such as Franklin, Louis XV, Empress of Austria Maria-Theresa, and Voltaire. In 1772, Nini’s career flourished as he moved to Chaumont-sur-Loire in France and was appointed the superintendent of a glass and ceramics workshop owned by Jacques-Donatien Le Ray de Chaumont, a businessman and aristocrat in the court of King Louis XVI, as well as a prominent French supporter of the American Revolution. Through Le Ray, Nini became connected with Franklin, who traveled to France in 1776 and stayed at Le Ray’s estate in Passy for several years.

This medallion by Nini represents one of the best-known likenesses of the first American diplomat. It was created during Franklin’s commission to France from 1776 to 1778, during which he was charged with securing support for American independence and became quickly embraced within French aristocratic and intellectual circles.

To capture his likeness, Nini produced Franklin’s image in several variations—in some, Franklin is seen with spectacles or donning a liberty cap; in others, he is depicted bare-headed in a style reminiscent of ancient classical busts. This version, in which Franklin appears in his simple brown suit and siganture fur cap, became the most widely disseminated representation and visually echoes other portraits of Franklin popularized at this time. The relief carving is accompanied by the inscription “B. Franklin Americain.” At the bottom of Franklin’s shoulders, we see the impression of Nini’s signature and the date 1777. While it’s unclear how many pieces were produced in total, medallions by Nini circulated widely in all shapes, sizes, and mediums.

In the aforementioned letter, Franklin commented on the immense reach of the medallion and the wide array of commerative objects documenting his famed sojourn in France:

“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 … 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.”

In addition to carefully rendering Franklin’s physical features, Nini put particular emphasis on the importance of his fashion and dress. The fur cap, which Nini has painstakingly carved in low relief, became virtually synonymous with Franklin during his time in France. Deliberately distancing himself from the fashionable refined suits and powdered wigs seen at court, Franklin chose to dress himself as plainly and naturally as possible. In another letter to Mary Hewson from Janurary, 1777, Franklin described his arrival in the capital as “an old Man with grey Hair appearing under a Martin Fur Cap, among the Powder’d Heads of Paris.” This sartorial choice not only made Franklin stand out among his Parisian peers, but also served to underscore a consciously curated image of simplicity, informality, as well as scholarly humility. Examined in this vein, Nini’s terracotta portrait of Franklin bears witness to the powerful tools of crafting one’s visual and political representation through art and material culture.

The publication of Franklin’s portrait through print, in which he similarly dons a fur cap and plain coat, by French newspapers of 1777 made this ensemble further recognizable and broadly copied. As Franklin’s celebrity rose, his style was embraced by French society with much fervor—women, in particular, began dressing their hair in coiffures à la Franklin, in a noteworthy episode of fashion trends traversing national, ideological, and gender conventions. Therefore, Nini’s rendering of the signature fur cap, which has now taken on the political function of embodying American democratic values, is thus as iconic here as the sitter of the relief portrait himself. At the same time, as scholars have pointed out, this reception played into stereotypical imaginations of the new world by the French as “rustic and primitive." In addition, this popular embrace of fur in French fashion also brings into tension issues of the fur trade and colonial exports, among them the role that Indigenous communities have historically played in the trapping and trading of fur.

Finally, the story of how many such medallions have survived also makes for an intriguing tale. According to accounts by André Storelli and Leonard Forrer, several hundreds of Nini medallions were sent to America in a large shipment that became lost at sea off the coast of Noirmoutier. Some of the cargo was salvaged and stored in a customs warehouse in Nantes, where it remained largely forgotten. Around the 1830s, the boxes were opened and ceded to agents of the Navy. The medallions appeared back on the market following acquisition by a collector, M. Myrvoix, who purchased four of the boxes. Eventually, these medallions made their way to England, and it is generally considered that most examples available today originated from this discovery.

The opportunity for the BCMA to collect Nini’s terracotta medallion offers a rich invitation to consider this work in a larger context of American portraiture, in addition to the longstanding practice of depicting one’s likeness through the visual arts from Antiquity to the present. The medallion highlights the many lives such an object takes on—through its wide-ranging implications in ideological messaging, cultural consumption, and collecting histories.

Sabrina Lin
Curatorial Assistant and Manager of Student Programs
Bowdoin College Museum of Art