American Commissioners of the Preliminary Peace Negotiations with Great Britain

This unfinished oil painting by famous American historical painter Benjamin West depicts the American negotiators of the Preliminary Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, Henry Laurens, John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, William Temple Franklin, and John Adams. Negotiations for the treaty began on November 30, 1782, and by February 1783 the commissioners had reached an agreement that functionally ended the Revolutionary War. While negotiations continued and final terms were not reached until September 3, 1783, West chose to celebrate the preliminary treaty in his painting. West intended to include the British commission members, Richard Oswald and Caleb Whitefoord, on the right side of the portrait, but he was unable to convince Oswald to sit for him or even to send him a portrait to copy. In an 1817 entry in his diary, John Adams' son, John Quincy Adams, provided an explanation for West's failure to finish the painting:

“Mr. Oswald the British Plenipotentiary, was an ugly looking man, blind of one eye, and he died without leaving any picture of him extant. This Mr. West alledged as the cause which prevented him from finishing the picture many years ago.”