Catalog Reference

A.J.N., VII, 49; XI, 62
Fuld-FR.M.MA.2

The Lodge of Nine Sisters (Neuf Soeurs) in Paris was legendary for the men among its membership and that small community’s role in the French Enlightenment. The Masonic group took its name from the nine muses of Greek mythology, suggesting that this group would be inspired by science and the arts. Formed in 1776, the lodge counted Franklin among its members beginning in 1778, and he served as the lodge’s Venerable Master from 1779 to 1781. The famous artist Jean-Antoine Houdon was a member, as were Voltaire, John Paul Jones, and the ballooning Montgolfier brothers. Franklin made leading the lodge a central part of his life in Paris, and he was very active with the group when they sought to honor him (and the newly signed Treaty of Paris) with a portrait jeton.

Lester Olson turned up a reference to this medal in Franklin’s papers that proves at least one of these (and probably more) made it to America. Franklin wrote to his sister Jane on September 4, 1786 and enclosed three medals, "one that I struck to commemorate our two important victories, and in honor of France for the assistance she afforded us [the Libertas Americana medal]" and "the other two struck as compliments to your brother, one by the Lodge of the Nine Sisters, of which he was President, the other by a private friend," the latter of which was likely the medal by Dupre, either Betts-619 or Betts-620. When Jane wrote back, she affirmed that the Nine Sisters medal was "very pritty."

The medals were initially struck for distribution at the lodge’s Fete Academique, a celebration of the cessation of hostilities and of Franklin’s role in the peace. According to a story about the celebration in the Jour de Paris on May 18, 1783, "The marquis then presented Franklin with the medal illustrated on the facing page, engraved by lodge member Jean-François Bernier ... The affair ended with a ball, and everyone who attended was given one of the medals that Franklin had earlier received."

Extraordinarily rare today, this Betts number was lacking in the LaRiviere collection. Ford, unsurprisingly, owned two silver examples, an alarming percentage of the five pieces Michael Hodder had recorded.

The example to the left was sold by Stack's Bowers Galleries in the May 2006 Auction, where it realized $10,350.