At that time Benjamin Franklin, about to go to France as American Ambassador, was the chief personage of Philadelphia. It was a fine feather in Fulton’s cap when the great man showed him favor. Franklin admired Fulton’s painstaking work and pleasant manner; it is said that he showed him unusual attention and introduced him to prominent men of the city. From this time Fulton’s services as a portrait painter were steadily engaged and orders flowed in. In 1787 Benjamin Franklin himself sat for his portrait, and this, of course, greatly helped to set the fashion. Its astonishing adventures are thus described in the _Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography_:
A portrait of Ben. Franklin painted by Robert Fulton of steamboat celebrity. On the back of the canvas is written “R. Fulton, Pinxt, 1787.” The history of this rare picture is distinctly traceable back thirty-three or thirty-four years, at which time it was sold at auction for twenty-five cents. For thirty years it hung without frame in the sitting room of a Rhode Island farmer. At another time it was used as a barrel cover in a farmer’s garret, and still later ornamented an engine house. The Rev. Henry Baylies found it in a photograph gallery in Fall River, Massachusetts. Mr. Baylies sold it in 1891 to C. F. Gunther, of Chicago.
Among the prominent citizens to whom Franklin introduced young Robert Fulton was John Ross, a successful merchant, who in friendly interest suggested that the artist should make a specialty of crayon likenesses of the young ladies in society. To set the fashion, Mr. Ross ordered portraits of his two daughters, Margaret and Clementina.
Mr. Ross was devoted to Clementina and when summoned to Paris on business for the government, wished her to accompany him; but Mrs. Ross, knowing that the ocean was infested by pirates, feared that their daughter might fall into their hands and raised so strong an objection that Clementina stayed at home. So Mr. Ross had her crayon portrait copied on ivory and carried the miniature as traveling companion.
Fulton’s portrait shows Margaret Ross in fancy dress, with tall jeweled head-gear, holding in her hand a full-blown rose.
Perhaps the daintiest bit of work ever accomplished by Fulton was an exquisite miniature of a certain Mary West, so tiny that it is set, as a jewel, in a finger ring. The likeness, oval in shape, is surrounded by brilliants. According to family tradition, Fulton painted the ring that Mary West’s brother might wear it at the Court of St. James in London. Her father, William West, came to live in Philadelphia about 1750 and was probably related to Benjamin West, the artist.