Details of Sculptor

Surname

Wright

Alternative Surname

First Name

Patience

Initial of Surname

W

Year of Birth/Baptism

1725

Flourished

Year of Death

1786

Biographical Details

A sculptor, wax modeller and wax-work manager, she was born in Bordentown, USA, and died in London. Pyke records that she was the earliest wax modeller in America. In 1769, after her husband died, she moved to New York, where in 1771, she advertised the public exhibition of wax figures made by herself and her sister Rachel Wells in New York City. Early in 1772 after most of the wax figures had been destroyed by fire she came to London to set up her waxworks. Her recorded addresses were Great Suffolk Street, Strand and Pall Mall. She was employed by Wedgwood to model a portrait in wax of Benjamin Franklin. A number of wax medallions have been attributed to her.
In 1776 the Gentleman’s Magazine published the following account of her activities: ‘As it is now the general season for exhibition, give me leave, through the channel of your Magazine, to recommend to the notice of the public the performances of a lady of very singular genius. Mrs. Wright of Chudleigh court, Pall-Mall, is one of the most extraordinary women of the age. As an artist she stands alone; for it is not in memory, that there now exists a person possessed of her abilities as a modeller in wax. In her present exhibition, if the busts of the King and Queen, the Duke of Cumberland, Lord North, Lord Chatham, Lord Effingham, Lord Temple, Jonas Hanway, Dr. Wilson, John Wilkes, and others, were not sufficient proofs of her skill, that of the Rev. Mr. Gostling, of Canterbury, lately finished, would be an incontestible evidence of her happy talent of preserving an admirable likeness, and coming the nearest to a representation of life of any artist that ever attempted modelling ... Mrs. Wright in the opinion of all who have seen it, has acquitted herself incomparably in the bust of Mr. Gostling, having given his immediate appearance, without the smallest deviation from the original’ (GM 1776, 214-5).
Literary References: Pyke 1973, 158-9