Image
Benjamin Franklin, by Benjamin Wilson, 1759.
Credit: White House Historical Association (White House Collection)(981)
Painted in 1759 by British artist and scientist Benjamin Wilson– who disagreed with Franklin's findings about electrical polarity–this portrait hung in Franklin's dining room in Philadelphia until Captain Andre' stole it during the British occupation of Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War. Returned to the U.S. in 1906, it is now in the White House, in Washington, D. C.