This is my finished painting inspired by Benjamin Franklin's 1745 letter, "Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress." Part of the wonderful new three-volume compendium edited by Russ Kick, "The Graphic Canon. " My painting appears in the first volume.
Instead of literally illustrating the text of Frankin's 1745 letter, I painted a picture showing the first flirtations between an itinerant silhouettist and a well-to-do-widow that may lead up a sybaritic assignation.
The scene shows a street in Philadelphia sometime about the last quarter of the 1700s. The shadow portraitist complements a fine lady on the quality of her classic profile and offers to cut her likeness for only the enjoyment and artistic pleasure of the experience.
Behind them, a British grenadier enjoys his pipe and the scene as it plays out in front of his recruiting office.
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