File:William Page - The Sisters.jpg

Identifier: artartistsofourt06cook (find matches)
Title: Art and artists of our time
Year: 1888 (1880s)
Authors: Cook, Clarence, 1828-1900
Subjects: Painting Painters
Publisher: New York, S. Hess
Contributing Library: Brandeis University Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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n her talk, but at last she lost liis favor by scolding him for sanc-tioning the war. Mrs. AVright afterward went to Paris for a short time, and assisted by thegood offices of Franklin, then minister at the French court, she was received with consider-able favor, but she soon returned to London, where the exhibition of her wax-work figuresand the practice of her profession as modeller made her presence necessary. All the biog-raphers of Mrs. Wright speak of the part she played as a political spy. Dunlap quotes theeditor of Franklins letters, who says that her residence in England enabled her to procuremuch intelligence of importance which she communicated to Dr. Franklin and others, withwhom she corresponded during the whole war. As soon as a general was appointed or a ART AND ARTISTS OF OUR TIME. 211 squadron began to be fitted out, the old lady found means of access to some family where shecould gain information, and thus, without being at all suspected, she contrived to transmit an
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THE SISTERS. FROM THE PAINTING BY WILLIAM PAGE. account of the number of the troops and the place of their destination to her political friendsabroad. While this is doubtless an exaggerated statement, it is certain that Mrs. Wright III 212 ART AND ARTISTS OF OUR TIME. was an ardent patriot, and that she Avas on very intimate terms with Franklin, Adams, andother Americans of higli standing, and though it may be questioned wliether slie woulddescend to the arts of the spy, she would think herself justified in doing all that lay in herpower to help her own side. Mrs. Wright died in London in 1785 at the age of sixty. Sheretained her faculties to the last, and Dunlap gives a characteristic letter, written in the yearof her death to Jefferson, then in Paris, in which, after speaking of the siiccess of her sonsportrait of Washington, she expresses a strong desire to make a likeness of Washington—abust in wax to be placed in the State-house or some public building that may be erected byCo

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