Schussele, Christian “Franklin Before The Lords In Council, Whitehall Chapel, London 1774”

Christian Schussele.  “Franklin Before The Lords In Council, Whitehall Chapel, London 1774.” 

Philadelphia: John M. Butler, 1859.  27 x 38 7/8 (image).  Steel engraving by Robert Whitechurch.  Left hand margin trimmed into image with one and one quarter inch of image missing.  Left hand side of print re-margined with old matching paper.  Dedication information below title missing.  Narrow top margin.  Large semi-circular tear in image at top skillfully repaired and in-painted.  Two tears into image right hand side skillfully repaired.  Tip of the top left corner of image in-painted.  Portions of top margin filled with matching paper.  A number of scrapes and abrasions in image in-painted as best as possible.  Else, fair condition.  

In June of 1773, the House of Representatives in Massachusetts petitioned the crown for the removal from office of Governor Hutchinson.  Benjamin Franklin, as an agent of that body, was assigned the task of presenting its demand in London.  This was in response to letters written by Hutchinson, intercepted by Franklin and sent to Boston, in which Hutchinson stated that England must do something to prevent the state from separating from Britain.  This print shows Franklin’s appearance before the Privy Council at the Cockpit in Whitehall on January 29, 1774.  Franklin was in an embarrassing position for he was British deputy postmaster general in North America and also a spokesman for the Massachusetts House of Representatives.  Every member of the Privy council attended and spectators came in numbers.  News of the Boston Tea Party arrived in London at this time and there was a lot of anti-American feeling.  Attending were Lord North and General Gage.  Franklin himself did not speak, but was represented by two lawyers who strongly urged the removal of Hutchinson.  This was rejected and Franklin was ridiculed and deprived of his position as deputy postmaster general.  Franklin stayed in London for another fourteen months to try to ease the strain between England and the colonies, but it was after this event that Franklin saw himself as an American and not as an Englishman.

Christian Schussele (1824-1879) worked as a printmaker in steel engraving, chromolithography, and wood engraving in Philadelphia after arriving in America from Germany in the mid-nineteenth century.  He was most successful and famous as a painter whose works were published by John Sartain in Philadelphia.  In the 1850s he turned to painting historic and patriotic scenes.