Figure 1:  Jean Huber, Le lever de Voltaire, oil on canvas, 1772. The many engraved copies of this painting and the enthusiasm of the public irritated the Ferney patriarch.

Figure 2:  George Romney, Emma Hamilton as Circe, 1782, one of the numerous paintings of Emma Hamilton, whose face was among the most celebrated of her time.

Figure 3:  James Gillray, Dido in Despair, engraving, 1802, turns the celebrity of Emma Hamilton into caricature.

Figure 4:  Joseph Siffred Duplessis, Portrait of Benjamin Franklin, 1783. An often reproduced semi-official portrait that became the one fixed in the public mind.

Figure 5:  Jean-Baptiste Houdon, Bust of Benjamin Franklin, 1778. There were many plaster copies made of this sculpture.

Figure 6:  Pierre Adrien Le Beau, Benjamin Franklin, engraving, 1777. A cheap engraving, sold by Esnault and Rapilly.

Figure 7:  Jean-Baptiste Nini, a medal in terracotta representing Franklin, 1777. Numerous variations of this medal exist.

Figure 8:  A candy box, with a miniature by François Dumont, 1779.

Figure 9:  A porcelain cup by Sèvres which testifies to the celebrity of Franklin in the 1780s.

Figure 10:  One of the first ceramic medals of Franklin created by Josiah Wedgwood around 1774.

Figure 11:  A ceramic bowl ornamented with a portrait of Franklin, copying an engraving by Cochin. On the other side is a portrait of Washington.

Figure 12:  Thomas Gainsborough, David Garrick, 1770, one of the numerous portraits of the greatest English star of the eighteenth century, who knew how to manage his public image.

Figure 13:  Gilbert Stuart, George Washington, 1796, the great official portrait of the first president, austere and distant.

Figure 14:  After Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Marie-Antoinette, 1783, an English-style portrait considered too informal, created a scandal when it was exhibited in the Academy salon.