Medium: oil
Exhibited: Royal Academy, 1858, Doré Galleries 1914
Daily News, 10 May 1858:
We recognise much promise of excellence in the contributions of Mr. Eyre Crowe. This is observable, not so much in the details (which are of secondary importance, and almost necessarily follow higher qualities) as in admirable choice of subject, judicious arrangement, and intelligent conduct of the leading idea. In No. 570 we have Benjamin Franklin at Watts’s, the printing-office in Lincoln’s Inn (A.D. 1725), engaged, as he describes in his autobiography, reading during his leisure hour, with a simple glass of water before him, instead of spending both time and money over “his pot and his pipe” with his idle, railing, bantering fellow workmen. There is something Hogarthian in the pot-boy coming in with the foaming tankards and “screws” of tobacco, as well as in the workmen drawing Franklin’s attention to the placard announcing the cheapness of their favourite beverage – though this accessory were unnecessary if intended to elucidate the meaning to the spectator.
Athenaeum, 15 May 1858:
Mr Crowe paints with curious dry colour. His Franklin in the Printing Office (570), with the beer-drinking printers taunting him for drinking water, was not worth painting, because there was nothing heroic or commendable in Franklin’s drinking water.
Art Journal, June 1864:
… the subject, which is very ably treated, was suggested to the artist by seeing at Washington the identical [printing] press used by Franklin.
Eyre Crowe (1824-1910) 