Joseph Wright, Jr. was an American portrait painter and die-sinker.
Background
Joseph Wright, Jr. was born on July 16, 1756, in Bordentown, New Jersey, one of three children and only son of Joseph Wright, Sr. and Patience Wright (Lovell), noted modeler in wax and secret American agent in Europe during the Revolution. After the death of her husband, Mrs. Wright about 1772 settled in London with her children.
Education
She was in comparatively affluent circumstances through the success of her work, and gave Joseph a good education and a thorough grounding in clay and wax modeling. In London he also studied painting with John Trumbull under Benjamin West.
Career
By 1780 he was exhibiting at the Royal Academy, where he showed a portrait of his mother. Before 1782 he painted a portrait of the Prince of Wales, later George IV. Skilled as modeler and portraitist, and with knowledge of die-sinking, he went to Paris in 1782 and there painted portraits of fashionable ladies under the patronage of his mother's intimate friend, Benjamin Franklin. Later in the same year he sailed from Nantes for America, but suffered shipwreck and was forced into a Spanish port, finally reaching Boston penniless after a ten weeks' voyage. With him he brought letters to influential persons in Boston and Rhode Island, as well as a letter from Franklin to Washington which, in October 1783, enabled him to paint the General and Mrs. Washington at headquarters in Rocky Hill near Princeton. There he met William Dunlap. In 1784 he painted another Washington portrait in military uniform to be presented through Robert Morris to Count de Solms for his collection of military portraits. After Washington became president Wright, Jr. wished to paint him again, but was refused because of stress of duties. A crayon drawing from life, however, was made in 1790 without Washington's knowledge while he sat in his pew in St. Paul's Chapel, New York. This portrait Wright, Jr. later etched and published on small cards. It is the only etching known to have been executed by Wright, Jr. himself. While Congress was sitting at Princeton, Patience Wright was agitating in Europe for a portrait of Washington by some European sculptor, and Wright, Jr. was commissioned to make a plaster cast of Washington's features. Dunlap records, however, that the cast was dropped and broken as Wright, Jr. removed it from the face. Washington refused to repeat the ordeal. In 1783-1784 Wright, Jr. was in Philadelphia, but by 1787 he had established himself in New York. In 1790 he followed Congress to Philadelphia, and shortly afterwards executed a family group showing himself, his wife, and their three children (in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts). That same year J. Manly published the "Manly Medal" by Samuel Brooks of Philadelphia, which bore a portrait of Washington attributed to Wright, Jr. , and is said to have been the first Washington medal produced in the United States.
In Philadelphia Wright, Jr. practised as portraitist, modeler, and die-sinker, his skill in the last profession gaining him in 1792 appointment by Washington as first draftsman and die-sinker of the newly established United States mint. Dunlap mentions a design for a cent made by Wright, Jr. in 1792, although there is no trace of ultimate execution. The first official coins and medals of the United States, however, were probably Wright's, Jr. work. He made dies for a Washington medal after the Houdon bust, and for a medal voted by Congress to Maj. Henry Lee. Among his paintings are portraits of Madison and his family, and one of John Jay executed in 1786 (in the collections of the New York Historical Society). His portraits of Washington, especially the miniature portrait made in St. Paul's Chapel, were copied by English engravers and appear in work by such men as Joseph Collyer, John Gadsby Chapman, and Thomas and George Wyon. Wright, Jr. also made a chalk drawing of his own head; a bust of him by William Rush is in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Joseph Wright, Jr. died on September 13, 1793, in Philadelphia during the yellow fever epidemic.
Achievements
Connections
On December 5, 1789, Joseph Wright, Jr. married Sarah Vandervoordt in Philadelphia. They had three children.