FRANKLIN, Mrs Philip

In a letter to Sir Joseph Duveen in London, dated January 13, 1939 in the Duveen Archive, Getty Research Institute (Box 381), the artist writes, ‘The Portrait of Mrs. Philip Franklin is nearly finished & few of her friends were allowed to see it & found same to be as living as could be painted & I consider the work most artistic and decorative.  Such results do one good & I know that this portrait will bring some orders surely.’

There are two candidates for the sitter:

It is most likely to be Laura Fendell Merryman who was the wife of Philip Albright Small Franklin (1871-1939) who was the president of the International Mercantile Marine from 1916 to 1936, the company which had owned the RMS Titanic, and lived in New York and at Hayfields House in Locust Valley, Long Island.

The second candidate may possibly be the wife of Philip Franklin (1898-1965) the American Mathematician and Harvard Professor, Constance (born 1898), sister of fellow American mathematician Norbert Wiener (1894-1964).