Joseph Wright (American painter)
Joseph Wright (July 16, 1756, Bordentown, New Jersey – September 13, 1793, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was an American portrait painter and sculptor.
Wright was President Washington's original choice for Chief Engraver of the U.S. Mint, but died at age 37, before being confirmed to that position.
Perhaps responding to accusations that he was anti-British, Wright engraved and published a cartoon self-portrait titled "Yankee-Doodle, or the American Satan.
[3] Paitence 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.
[4] Her friend Benjamin Franklin came to Paris in 1782, as chief of the American delegation to negotiate a treaty to end the Revolutionary War.
In October, Wright was one of two or three artists invited to Rocky Hill, New Jersey, to paint General Washington at his headquarters.
[12] Washington received a letter from a Saxon nobleman, the Count de Solms, requesting that the American general sit for a portrait to add to his gallery of military leaders.
Washington spent two weeks in Philadelphia as Morris's houseguest in December 1783, during which he may have selected Wright to paint the portrait.
[f] 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.
[23] The Count de Solms acknowledged receipt of the original portrait in a 1785 letter,[24] but its current whereabouts are unknown.
[16] 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.
[25] 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.
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.
[28] 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.
[34] New York City served as the national capital for two years, and the portrait shows Muhlenberg seated at his desk on the dais of the House Chamber.
[36] Wright painted pendant portraits of Charles Thomson, secretary of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, and his second wife, Hannah Harrison.
The Liberty image first appeared as the obverse of the General Henry Lee Medal (1792), commissioned by Congress,[1] issued by the Mint, and signed "J.
[1] Wright's sister Phoebe married his schoolmate from the Royal Academy of Arts, British portrait painter John Hoppner.
