Benjamin Franklin

(M. Knoedler & Co., London, New York, and Paris); purchased 1928 by Mr. [1873-1936] and Mrs. [née Adele Lewisohn, 1882-1965] Arthur Lehman, New York;[1] gift 1961 to the White House, in care of the National Park Service, Washington, D.C.; transfer 1971 to NGA. [1] According to the provenance provided by Knoedler's when the painting was acquired by the Lehmans (in NGA curatorial files), the Washington canvas was said to have been in the following collections: purchased from the artist by Elie de Beaumont, who died in Paris on 10 January 1786; purchased 1828 in Paris by a Mr. Graham, an officer in the Foot Guards; his son, John Charles William Paul Graham, London; bequeathed 1898 to Henry Anson Harton, Esq., Catton Hall, Burton-on-Trent. The 1936 exhibition catalogue adds the name of the American collector Thomas B. Clarke [1848-1931] of New York, and Claus Virch, _The Adele and Arthur Lehman Collection_, New York, 1965: 56-57, adds with a question mark J.C.W.P. Graham's sale at Christie's, London, 23 July 1898, where the painting, no. 39 ("J.B. Greuze, _Portrait of Franklin_, 27 1/2 in. x 22 in."), was withdrawn. Clarke's sale of early American portraits (American Art Association, New York, 7 January 1919) did not include the NGA painting.