Benjamin Franklin Reinhart was born on August 29, 1829 near Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, the youngest of the nine children of Joseph and Sarah (Smith) Reinhart. His first paternal ancestor in America came from Lorraine to Pennsylvania in 1704. Charles Stanley Reinhart was his nephew. As a child he manifested a precocious talent for drawing and an early determination to adopt the profession of a painter.
He went to Pittsburgh to take his first lessons in painting in 1844 and began to paint portraits when he was but sixteen years old.
In 1847 he went to New York, where he entered the schools of the National Academy of Design. After three years he went to Europe and spent another three years in study at Dusseldorf, Paris, and Rome.
He paid especial attention to what was then called "grand composition, " for it was his ambition to qualify as a historical painter. On his return to New York in 1853, however, he found that portrait painting was the readiest means of support. Several times he traveled to the Middle West and the South to paint the likenesses of notable men.
When the Civil War began in 1861 he went to England and for seven years lived in London, where he was very successful. He made many portraits of the nobility and gentry, among others the Princess of Wales, the Duchess of Newcastle, the Countess of Portsmouth, Lady Vane-Tempest, and Lord Brougham, and of several literary lions, including Carlyle and Tennyson. He also found time to paint a few genre pictures. Among his important works of this English period was "Cleopatra" (1865), the studies for which were made in Egypt. It is in an English collection. In 1868 he returned to America, and the rest of his professional life was passed in New York. He was made an associate of the National Academy in 1871.
Many of his portraits and genre pieces have been engraved.
One of the most popular examples was "Evangeline" (1877); another which had almost as great an appeal was his "Pride of the Village" (1884). He had among his sitters a number of eminent Americans, including James Buchanan, Edwin M. Stanton, Salmon P. Chase, Winfield Scott, Stephen A. Douglas, John C. Breckinridge, Samuel Houston, George M. Dallas, Bishop Leonidas Polk, and Charles O'Conor. Of his historical paintings the more important are "Washington Receiving the News of Arnold's Treason, " "Young Franklin and Sir William Keith, " and "Captain Kidd and the Governor. "
