Joseph-Siffred Duplessis (1725 –  1802)

• Was a French painter.
• He was born in Carpentras, near Avignon.
• His first training from his father, a surgeon and talented amateur.
• He subsequently studied with Joseph Gabriel Imbert, who had been a pupil of Charles Le Brun.
• From 1744–47 or later he worked in Rome, in the atelier of Pierre Subleyras.
• He returned to Carpentras, spent a brief time in Lyon then arrived about 1752 in Paris.
• In Paris he was accepted into the Académie de Saint-Luc and exhibited some portraits, which were now his specialty, in 1764.
• His portrait of Benjamin Franklin (circa 1785), more than any other, has fixed the image of Franklin for posterity since it is reproduced on the U.S. hundred dollar bill.
• His portrait of the financier Jacques Necker hung at Voltaire's Coppet Castle.
• Several reduced versions were made, one of which is at the Louvre.
• Many of his portraits received a wider circulation as engravings. 
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