Isaac Franklin

By Washington Cooper (Nashville)
Ca. 1844
Oil on Canvas
Exhibitions: Purchased Lives: The American Slave Trade, 1808-1865, The Historic New Orleans Collection. March – July 2015
Traveling exhibition, June – August, 2016
Provence: Isaac Franklin to his brother William Franklin; to his wife, Evalina Douglas; to their son, Benjamin Dudley Franklin; to his siste,r Margaret Franklin Elliot; to her daughter, May Elliot Knight; to their son, Roy Woodson Knight, Sr.; to his wife, Grace; to unknown couple in 1985; to their children; to antique dealer in Huntsville, Alabama; to Belmont Mansion Association by purchase.
2006.01.20 by purchase Belmont Mansion Association

This is a portrait of Adelicia’s first husband. According to a description of the mansion’s interior in 1881 portraits of all of her husbands hung in the house. Cooper’s journal indicates that he painted a number of portraits of Isaac Franklin beginning in September of 1842. He painted a second portrait of Isaac Franklin in June 1844 and a third portrait in September of 1845. For the third portrait he only charged $50 and $60 for the others. This could reflect that the decorative corners were not used on this frame as in the other frames of the Franklins portraits that Adelicia owned. The other portraits of Franklin were apparently for his brothers. This is the only one of the three Cooper portraits of Isaac Franklin known.

The portrait retains its original frame.