Benjamin Franklin 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. 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. 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. Franklin was pleased with the portrait, and commissioned Wright to paint a copy as a gift for a friend. Wright painted seven known versions of the portrait. The life portrait is in the
Yale University Art Gallery, the "Franklin" replica is in the
National Gallery of Art, He based five known portraits on this life study, but there is no documentation that Washington granted additional sittings. 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, 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." 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. Morris paid for the portrait to be shipped to London, and the Saxon minister sent it on to the Count de Solms. The "Powel" version—3/4-length, oil on canvas, 48 x 40 in—is in the Philadelphia History Museum. The Wright/Trumbull version later hung at
Monticello, and is now at the
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, but its current whereabouts are unknown. 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." 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)." In April 1784, the Congressional committee paid Wright $233.33 for the clay bust. 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. He created a half-size plaster version of this for Martha Washington, that remains at 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, 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." File:The Powel Portrait of Washington by Joseph Wright.jpg|
Powel Portrait of George Washington (1784), Philadelphia History Museum File:Mount Vernon Portrait of George Washington by Joseph Wright (1784).jpg|
Portrait of George Washington (1784), Mount Vernon, VA File:Wright-Trumbull portrait 1784, 1786 MHS.jpg|
Wright-Trumbull Portrait of George Washington (1784; additions by John Trumbull, 1786), Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston File:Portrait of George Washington by Joseph Wright, c. 1789–1790.jpg|
Seated Portrait of George Washington (1789-1790), Museum of Connecticut History, Hartford File:Portraits of George Washington by Joseph Wright (1790), Cleveland Museum of Art.webp|
Profile Portrait of George Washington (1790), Cleveland Museum of Art File:Joseph Wright wax relief Portrait of George Washington 1784.jpg|Wax relief head of George Washington (1784), Winterthur Museum, Wilmington, DE File:Wright Washington profile engraving MMA cropped.jpg|Engraved bust of G. Washington (1790), Metropolitan Museum of Art
Other portraits Wright moved his portrait studio to New York City in 1786. It is also the only known image of the interior of
Federal Hall, where both houses of Congress met, 1788–1790. and an 1881 copy by
Samuel Bell Waugh is in the U.S. House of Representatives art collection. Wright painted pendant portraits of
Charles Thomson, secretary of the
Continental Congress, 1774–1789, and his second wife, Hannah Harrison. File:'John Coats Browne', painting by the Joseph Wright.JPG|
Portrait of John Coats Browne (1784), de Young Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA File:Joseph Wright - Portrait of General Giles - Google Art Project.jpg|
Portrait of General James Giles (1785), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. File:Hannah Harrison Thomson.jpg|
Portrait of Hannah Harrison Thompson (1785), Tudor Place, Washington, D.C. File:Charles Thomson full portrait - Joseph Wright (cropped).jpg|
Portrait of Charles Thomson (1785), Tudor Place, Washington, D.C. File:Wright Baron von Steuben c.1786.jpg|
Portrait of Baron von Steuben (1786), National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. File:Frederick Muhlenberg.jpg|
Portrait of Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg (1790), National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. File:Wright Catharine Muhlenberg c.1790.jpg|
Portrait of Catharine Schaeffer Muhlenberg (c.1790), on loan to The Speaker's House, Trappe, PA File:Elizabeth Powel by Joseph Wright, c. 1793.jpg|
Portrait of Elizabeth Willing Powel (1793), Mount Vernon, VA == U.S. coinage ==