[Mary “Polly” Stevenson Hewson] | Portrait of Polly Stevenson by an unknown artist

[Mary “Polly” Stevenson Hewson]

Portrait of Polly Stevenson by an unknown artist. Probably London: ca. 1770s

Pastel on paper (232 x 185 mm). Areas of restoration to margins, edges chipped with few neat repairs, one or two scratches. Matted, glazed, and likely in the original gilt oval frame (overall 280 x 235 mm).

"Our Friendship has been all clear Sunshine, without the least Cloud in its Hemisphere…" (Franklin's letter to Polly Stevenson, 27 January 1783).

The present portrait captures Polly Stevenson, with whom Franklin maintained a close transatlantic friendship across the decades. Indeed, after years of living with Polly and her mother in London, he considered the Stevensons a sort of second family. Polly presumably brought this portrait along with her in 1786 when, at Franklin's encouragement, she moved to Philadelphia after the death of her husband.

REFERENCES

Bell, "'All Clear Sunshine': New Letters of Franklin and Mary Stevenson Hewson" in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 100, no. 6, 17 December 1956, p. 521; Lopez, The Private Franklin, illustrated in the plates after p. 140; Metropolitan Museum of Art, Benjamin Franklin and his Circle, 89

EXHIBITION

Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Benjamin Franklin and his Circle," 1936; Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary traveling exhibition, "Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World," 2005-2008

PROVENANCE

Mary “Polly” Stevenson Hewson, thence by descent to — Katherine N. Bradford — Joan Bradford Wiederseim — Theodore E. Wiederseim