In 1752, the American polymath Benjamin Franklin supposedly flew a kite near the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to confirm that lightning had the same properties of common electricity that electrical machines produced and Leyden jars served to store. Illustrations, vignettes and paintings frequently portray the famous experiment, showing Franklin, with a boy, flying the kite in an open field and amid a storm. Nonetheless, little is known or said about the elements of these illustrations and the reference the illustrators used to portray the experiment. This paper aims to discuss these matters in a thoughtful study of seven nineteenth-century illustrations depicting Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment. I will show that the account by Joseph Priestley in his "The History and Present State of Electricity," published in 1767, influenced these illustrations. I indicate that due to this influence, the illustrations present several departures from Franklin's original account, leading to a mistaken iconography of how the experiment took place. I conclude with a discussion on how this study can contribute to a better use and understanding of illustrations depicting scientific episodes in science classrooms.