Joseph Wright

Wright of Derby

British, 1734 - 1797

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18th-century British painter (1734-1797)

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Mountains painted in tones of sage and mint green and mauve purple are backlit against a hazy sky in this expansive, nearly square landscape painting. In the bottom quarter of the composition, the dirt-packed land is partially covered with patches of scrubby grass. A person, tiny in the landscape, sits on a rock to the left of the bottom center of the painting. That person has pale skin and wears a wide-brimmed, dark hat, a slate-blue jacket, muted red pants, and shin-high boots. He rests his head in one hand, that elbow propped on his bent knee. He braces a stick, perhaps a walking stick, against the other shoulder, and a canteen hangs by one hip. A path starting in the lower left corner of the painting winds back into the deep distance. A complex of pale-colored buildings sits on a rocky cliff face near the center of the composition, and another complex is tucked on a distant mountain to the left. The mountains span the left two-thirds of the painting and taper down to meet a crescent-shaped body of water to the right. Another building in the deep distance near the right edge of the canvas is outlined against a smoky, pale blue ridge. White clouds pile in the hazy sky in the top half of the painting. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “I Wright Pinx 1790.”
Joseph Wright, Italian Landscape, 1790, oil on canvas, Paul Mellon Collection, 1983.1.47

Italian Landscape

Joseph Wright · 1790 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1983.1.47

A woman leans forward to trace the shadow cast by a sleeping young man on a wall in a dimly lit room in this horizontal painting. Both people have smooth, pale skin, long, straight noses, thin lips, and brown hair. The man sits and sleeps on a deep, wood chair. The scene is lit from over our left shoulder so he casts a shadow on the brown wall on which he leans. His right arm, closer to us, hangs by his side with his palm turned to face away from his body. The other arm lies across his bent knee. He wears a harvest-yellow tunic, and a sapphire-blue cloak drapes over his far arm and the thigh closer to us. A long spear rests across one shoulder, and a thin, muted-brown dog, like a greyhound, sleeps on the ground by the man’s side. The woman leans one knee onto the chair and reaches out with a stylus to capture the man’s shadow. She is barefoot and smiles gently at his face. She also wears a dark yellow dress, which exposes one bare shoulder. A mauve-pink cloth wraps over one shoulder and the bent thigh. A deep red curtain bunched up in the upper left corner hides the light source. An urn, nearly as tall as the chair, stands behind the man and another is tipped over behind the woman. An arched opening leads into a darkened room to our right. Rectangles of red and white seen through the top of a pointed arched window there are difficult to interpret. A table and some shelves with more urns are deep in the shadows.
Joseph Wright, The Corinthian Maid, 1782-1784, oil on canvas, Paul Mellon Collection, 1983.1.46

The Corinthian Maid

Joseph Wright · 1782-1784 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1983.1.46

Joseph Wright, Portrait of a Gentleman, c. 1770-1773, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1940.1.11

Portrait of a Gentleman

Joseph Wright · c. 1770-1773 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1940.1.11

Joseph Wright, Portrait of a Gentleman, c. 1760, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1947.17.112

Portrait of a Gentleman

Joseph Wright · c. 1760 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1947.17.112

Bibliography

1968

  • Nicolson, Benedict. Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter of Light. 2 vols. London, 1968.

1990

  • Egerton, Judy. Wright of Derby. Exh. cat. Tate Gallery, London; Grand Palais, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. London, 1990.

1992

  • Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 339-340.