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Browsing: Diary of John Quincy Adams, Volume 1
Saturday November 1. 1783.
Docno: DQA01d614
Date: 1783-11-01
This morning I went with Mr. W. Vaughan to see the Paintings of Mr. Pine,1 and Mr. Copley, and Sir Joshua Reynolds. The Death of the Earl of Chatham, by Mr. Copley, is the most Remarkable of the Paintings We saw; it is very Beautiful. We went also to see Mrs. Wright's waxwork.2 Dined at Mr. Bingham's.3
1. Robert Edge Pine was born in London and emigrated to Philadelphia in 1784 with the intention of executing an ambitious plan of American historical paintings and portraits of Revolutionary leaders (
DNB
).
2. Mrs. Patience Lovell Wright, the American wax modeler and Revolutionary spy for America, who moved to England in 1772 and opened a popular waxworks in London (
DAB
).
3. William Bingham, Philadelphia banker, land speculator, and later U.S. senator. Bingham had come to Europe, for business and pleasure, with his wife, Ann Willing, and remained there until 1786, seeing much of the Adamses at The Hague, Paris, and London. JQA found Bingham “Very ignorant, very vain and very empty” (JA, Diary and Autobiography
, 3:149; entry for 18 April 1785, below).
Cite web page as: Founding Families: Digital Editions of the Papers of the Winthrops and the Adamses, ed.C. James Taylor. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2007.
http://www.masshist.org/ff/
http://www.masshist.org/ff/