This lady, a member of the Royal Academy in London, is mentioned by the biographers of Nollekens as “skillful in painting flowers, sarcastic when she held the pen.” She liked to visit the illiterate Nollekens, at whose house, with a cup of tea, she occasionally enjoyed the company of Dr. Johnson. Smith does not hesitate to charge her with having set her cap at Fuseli, “but his heart, unfortunately, had already been deeply pierced by Angelica Kauffman.”
She was the daughter of a German artist in enameling, but was educated in England. She was truly wonderful in flower-pieces. The tasteful decorations of some new apartments in Windsor Palace were executed by her hand.
While in London she wrote thus to her friend Mrs. Lloyd:
“Come to London and admire our plumes; we sweep the sky! A duchess wears six feathers, a lady four, and every milkmaid one at each corner of her cap! * * * Fashion is grown a monster; pray tell your operator that your hair must measure just three quarters of a yard from the extremity of one wing to the other.”
Queen Charlotte took particular notice of Miss Moser, and for a considerable time employed her for the decoration of one chamber, which her majesty commanded to be called Miss Moser’s room, and for which the queen paid upward of nine hundred pounds.
PATIENCE WRIGHT.
This extraordinary woman, as Dunlap rightly calls her, was born, like West, among a people who professed to eschew all that is imaginative or pictorial. Her parents, who were Quakers, lived at Bordentown, New Jersey, where Patience Lovell was born in 1725. Her uncommon talent for imitation was shown long before she had an opportunity of seeing any work of art. The dough meant for the oven, or the clay found near her dwelling, supplied her with materials out of which she moulded figures that bore a recognizable resemblance to human beings, and, ere long, to the persons with whom she was most familiar.
She married Joseph Wright of Bordentown in 1748. He lived only nineteen years. Before 1772 the lady had gained not a little celebrity in some of the cities of the United States for her astonishing likenesses in wax. A widow, with three children dependent on her for support, she was obliged to seek a larger field for her efforts. The prospect of success in London was good, and to London she went.
There is testimony in English journals of the day that her works were thought extraordinary of their kind. She bade fair to rival the famous Madame Tussaud. Her conversational powers and general intelligence gained her the attention and friendship of several among the distinguished men of the day. Though a resident of England, her sympathies were engaged in behalf of her countrymen during the struggle of the American Revolution. It is said she even rendered important aid to the cause by sending to American officers intelligence of the designs of the British government. She corresponded with Franklin while he was in Paris; and as soon as a new general was appointed, or a squadron began to be fitted out, he was sure to know it. She was often able to gain information in families where she visited, and to transmit to her American friends accounts of the number of British troops and the places of their destination.
At one time she had frequent access to Buckingham House, and was accustomed to express her sentiments freely to their majesties, who were amused with her originality. The great Chatham honored her with his visits, and she took the full-length likeness of him, which appears in a glass case in Westminster Abbey.