The fame of Benjamin West in London was a favorite topic of conversation in Lancaster. Robert Fulton had already been able to sell mechanical drawings to the shops and had painted tavern-signs, as had West, for local inns. What more natural than that Fulton, with like talent for art, should decide to adopt portrait-painting as his profession?
Mrs. Fulton’s heart must have been very full as she bade her eldest son goodby and saw him mount the stage-coach for the journey to Philadelphia. He had some friends in the city, Lancaster people who had gone there for business or other reasons, for a large city always drains the adjacent villages of the enterprising folk who desire greater fields for action.
Robert Fulton had a cheerful and happy nature and a real talent for making friends, so he soon added new acquaintances to his list, though he was always particular to choose his companions wisely.
It was a brave venture for a country lad of seventeen to attempt self-support by art in a great city, but he was eager to acquire every kind of knowledge, and applied himself earnestly to whatsoever his hand could find to do. He designed carriages and buildings; he made mechanical drawings for machine-shops; he copied sketches in India ink; he painted tavern-signs, and all the while, he studied the finer art of portrait and miniature painting, with the hope of making this alone his profession when time should grant him sufficient skill.
An interesting example of Fulton’s early art is a sketch in India ink of a French landscape, showing peasant women washing linen by the side of a stream. It is entitled “La Blanchiseuse” and signed “Robert Fulton, March 15, 1783,” so it was made during his first year in Philadelphia. Probably it was a copy of a French engraving in the Museum where Fulton took lessons when he could afford to employ a teacher.
At that time Charles Wilson Peale was the foremost artist in Philadelphia, and it is thought that Fulton availed himself of his instruction,—at any rate they were friends during later life.
In 1785 the young Lancaster student was registered in the city directory, “Robert Fulton, Miniature Painter, Cor. of 2d. & Walnut Streets,” which indicates that he was launched in his profession. The following year he painted a portrait of his “Good Friend, Joseph Bringhurst,” a Quaker patron. This portrait is labeled “Second portrait in oils”, which defines the time when Fulton began to paint large portraits, although prior to this date he had made many crayon portraits and miniatures.
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.