Patience Wright

Wright was born into a Quaker farm family and married Joseph Wright in 1748. For years, she had amused herself and her five children by molding faces out of putty, bread dough, and wax. After her husband died in 1769, her pastime became a full-time occupation as she began earning a living from molding portraits in tinted wax.

In 1772, Wright traveled to England and opened a successful wax museum. Benjamin Franklin introduced her to London society. Wright became known as the "Promethean modeller," for her New World egalitarianism and often coarse speech as well as her artwork. She was patronized by George III, and sculpted him and other members of British royalty and nobility, but fell from royal favor because of her open support for the colonial cause during the American Revolution. Never forgetting her Patriot loyalties, she became a spy for the cause, often sending messages to America inside her wax figures. Wright's sculpture of friend William Pitt still stands in Westminster. She loved to write poetry and was a painter.

Patience Wright's son Joseph Wright (1756-1793) was a well-known portrait painter. Her daughter Phoebe married British painter John Hoppner; their son, Henry Parkyns Hoppner, went on to become a Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer.

Her home at 100 Farnsworth Avenue in Bordentown, New Jersey still stands.

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