Joseph Wright (July 16, 1756 – September 13, 1793) was an American painter and sculptor. He painted life portraits of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, and was a designer of early U.S. coinage. Wright had been Washington's original choice for Chief Engraver of the United States Mint, but he died at age 37 before being confirmed to that position by the United States Congress. Wright is often confused with his contemporary, the English painter Joseph Wright of Derby.
Early years Wright was born in Bordentown, New Jersey, the son of Philadelphia barrelmaker Joseph Wright and sculptor Patience Lovell Wright. His parents were Quakers of English descent, and he attended the Academy and College of Philadelphia.
Wright's father died in 1769, and his mother turned her hobby of modeling wax portraits into a business. She opened a portrait studio/wax museum in New York City in 1770, leaving Wright in Philadelphia to finish his schooling. Patience Wright moved the portrait studio/wax museum to London in 1772, where she was joined by her children. Joseph Wright entered the Royal Academy of Arts in 1775, where he studied for six years, and in December 1778 won a silver medal for "the best model of an Academy figure." Wright caused a controversy at the school in 1780, by exhibiting a portrait of his mother modeling a wax head of King Charles II, while busts of King George III and Queen Charlotte looked on. Perhaps responding to accusations that he was anti-British, Wright engraved and published a cartoon self-portrait titled "Yankee-Doodle, or the American Satan."Jan Kelsey, "Joseph Wright," Encyclopedia of New Jersey, Maxine N. Lurie & Marc Mappen, eds., (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004), pp. 889-890. Wright was the first American-born student to matriculate from the Royal Academy of Arts.Monroe H. Fabian, Joseph Wright, American Artist, 1756-1793 (Washington, D.C.: National Portrait Gallery, 1985).
Portrait painter Benjamin Franklin
Patience Wright was a supporter of the American Revolution, and wartime tensions in London led to her move her portrait studio/wax museum to Paris in 1780.Women's Project of New Jersey, "Patience Wright," Past and Promise: Lives of New Jersey Women (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1997), p. 43. Her friend Benjamin Franklin came to Paris in 1782, as chief of the American delegation to negotiate a treaty to end the Revolutionary War. The chief of the British delegation, Richard Oswald, commissioned 26-year-old Joseph Wright to paint a portrait of Franklin.A Catalogue of the Collection of American Paintings in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Volume 1 (Washington, D. C.: The Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1966), p. 31. Rather than posing for many tedious hours, Franklin urged Wright to base his portrait on a small 1778 pastel portrait by French artist Joseph-Siffred Duplessis owned by Franklin. The pose was the same, but Wright's portrait was life-size, and he changed the clothing and background. Wright's correspondence confirms that Franklin indeed did sit for him.Joseph Wright to William Temple Franklin, n.d. [Fall 1782], quoted in Sellers. Franklin was pleased with the portrait, and commissioned Wright to paint a copy as a gift for a friend.Charles Henry Hart, "An Original Portrait of Doctor Franklin, by Joseph Wright," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 32, no. 3 (1908), pp. 320-334. Wright painted seven known versions of the portrait.Important American Paintings, Drawings & Sculpture of the 18th, 19th & 20th Centuries (New York: Christie's Auctions, 26 May 1992), Lot 16. The life portrait is in the Yale University Art Gallery,Coleman C. Sellers, Benjamin Franklin in Portraiture (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1962), pp. 414-426. the "Franklin" replica is in the National Gallery of Art, and other replicas are in the Royal Society of London, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and elsewhere.
Following seven years in Europe, Wright returned to America in 1782, with a letter of recommendation from Franklin to George Washington.
George Washington
The Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783, officially ending the war. In October, Wright was one of two or three artists invited to Rocky Hill, New Jersey, to paint General Washington at his headquarters. Wright was granted a single sitting, and painted a 1/2-length study—oil on mahogany panel, 14 1/8 x 12 in. -- now in the collection of the Philadelphia History Museum.Nicholas B. Wainwright, Paintings and Miniatures at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: The Winchell Company, 1974), p. 273. He based five known portraits on this life study, but there is no documentation that Washington granted additional sittings.
Washington received a letter from a Saxon nobleman, Friedrich-Christoph, Count de Solms, requesting that the American general sit for a portrait to add to the Count's portrait gallery of military leaders.Friedrich-Christoph, Count de Solms to George Washington, 9 July 1783. The July 1783 letter took months to arrive, and was conveyed through the Saxon minister in London, who enclosed his own letter offering to pay for the portrait,Comte de Brühl to George Washington, 4 September 1783. and through Robert Morris. Washington spent two weeks in Philadelphia as Morris's houseguest in December 1783, during which he may have selected Wright to paint the portrait. He replied to the Count de Solms in January 1784: "I have not delayed a moment therefore to comply with your wishes, but have employed a Gentleman to perform the work, who is thought on a former occasion to have taken a better likeness of me, than any other painter has done: His forté seems to be in giving the distinguishing characteristics with more boldness than delicacy."Washington to the Comte de Solms, January 3, 1784. John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscripts, Volume 27 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, September 1938), pp. 290-291. Wright painted the 3/4-length portrait in Philadelphia, and completed it in early 1784. Washington returned to Philadelphia on May 1, for the first meeting of the Society of the Cincinnati, which convened from May 4 to 18. He may have seen the portrait for the first time on May 15, when he paid Wright $40 for it.[May 15, 1784] "By Mr Wright to him for Drawing my Picture for Ct DeSolm 40 Drs.” Washington General Ledger B, p. 199. Morris paid for the portrait to be shipped to London, and the Saxon minister sent it on to the Count de Solms.
Washington was pleased with the portrait, and commissioned Wright to paint a replica as a gift for Mrs. Samuel Powel.Robert J. Hare Powel, Notes on the 'Wright' Portrait of George Washington, Newport Historical Society. The "Powel" version—3/4-length, oil on canvas, 48 x 40 in—is in the Philadelphia History Museum. Thomas Jefferson saw the original portrait in Philadelphia, and also ordered a replica. He was soon to depart for Paris, to represent the United States in treaty negotiations between France and Great Britain. Wright was only able to finish the head and to sketch out the body before the portrait sailed with Jefferson. American painter John Trumbull was in Paris in 1786, and Jefferson hired him to complete the portrait.William W. Betts Jr., The Nine Lives of George Washington (Bloomington, IN: iUniverse Books, 2013), p. 160. The Wright/Trumbull version later hung at Monticello, and is now at the Massachusetts Historical Society.George Washington from Massachusetts Historical Society. A seated portrait of Washington by Wright is at the Connecticut State Library and Supreme Court Building, in Hartford. A head-and-bust portrait, missing the background battlefield scene of the 3/4-length versions, is at Mount Vernon. The Count de Solms acknowledged receipt of the original portrait in a 1785 letter,Friedrich-Christoph, Count de Solms to George Washington, 4 August 1785. but its current whereabouts are unknown.
Busts On August 7, 1783, Congress created a committee to commission a life-size bronze equestrian statue of George Washington to adorn the eventual U.S. national capital.Elizabeth Bryant Johnston, Original Portraits of Washington (Boston: R. Osgood and Company, 1882), pp. 147-149. The committee's recommendation specified: "The general to be represented in a Roman dress, holding a truncheon in his right hand, and his head encircled with a laurel-wreath." It directed that the statue be modeled and cast in Europe, but also commissioned Wright to create a life-size clay bust of Washington to be used as a 3-dimensional model by whatever European sculptor should be awarded the equestrian commission. In furtherance of this effort, Washington invited Wright to Mount Venon, and allowed the artist to make a life mask of his face: Wright came to Mount Vernon with the singular request that I should permit him to take a model of my face, in plaster of Paris, to which I consented, with some reluctance. He oiled my features over; and placing me flat upon my back, upon a cot, preceded to daub my face with the plaster. Whilst in this ludicrous attitude, Mrs. Washington entered the room; and seeing, my face thus overspread with the plaster, involuntarily exclaimed. Her cry excited me in a disposition to smile, which gave my mouth a slight twist, or compression of the lips that is now observable in the bust which Wright afterward made.
Wright's clay bust may have been nearing completion in late 1783, when Patience Wright, then back in London, wrote to Washington in December: "My Friends Write to me from America that Joseph Wright (my Son) has painted a Likeness and also moddel'd (sic) a Clay Busto of General Washington which will be a very great honor to My Famaly (sic)."Patience Wright to George Washington, December 8, 1783, Library of Congress. In April 1784, the Congressional committee paid Wright $233.33 for the clay bust.Varnum Lansing Collins, The Continental Congress at Princeton (Princeton University Library, 1908), p. 112. But it provided no funding for the bust to be transported to France for the U.S. Minister to the Court of Versailles, Benjamin Franklin, to select a sculptor. Instead, the bust was delivered to Congress, then meeting at Trenton, New Jersey. The idea of commissioning a bronze equestrian statue of Washington seems to have been abandoned during the French Revolution. Wright's clay bust is presumed to have been destroyed by the British during the War of 1812, in the August 1814 burning of the U.S. Capitol.
Congress also commissioned Wright to model a life-size plaster relief bust of Washington, that he completed in January 1785.Joseph Wright to Charles Thomson (Secretary of Congress), 20 January 1785. He created a half-size plaster version of this for Martha Washington, that remains at Mount Vernon.George Washington relief bust from George Washington's Mount Vernon. He modeled at least two profile relief heads in wax, that are now at Mount Vernon and the Winterthur Museum in Delaware. Wright painted a 1790 profile bust of Washington in uniform,In Mead Art Museum, Amherst College. which he engraved and published as a print. Thomas Jefferson judged Wright's engraving very highly: "I have no hesitation in pronouncing Wright's drawing to be a better likeness of the General than [Charles Willson] Peale's."Thomas Jefferson to Jean Baptiste Henri Barré, 11 July 1785, Boyd, Jefferson Papers, vol. 8, pp. 281-282.
Other portraits Wright moved his portrait studio to New York City in 1786. Two years later the city became the first national capital under the U.S. Constitution.