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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

West Building, Main Floor - Gallery 61

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 106.3 x 130.8 cm (41 7/8 x 51 1/2 in.)

framed: 135.9 x 158.8 x 8.2 cm (53 1/2 x 62 1/2 x 3 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Paul Mellon Collection

Accession Number

1983.1.46

Artists / Makers

Joseph Wright (artist) British, 1734 - 1797

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

Painted for Josiah Wedgwood [1730-1795], Etruria, Staffordshire.[1] John Greaves [b. 1793], Irlam Hall, near Manchester, by 1831.[2] Charles Meigh, Grove House, Shelton, Staffordshire; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 21-22 June 1850, 1st day, no. 108, bought in); (Anon. [Meigh] sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, 18 June 1859, no. 202); purchased by John Bentley, Esq. [1797-1879], Birch House, near Bolton, Lancashire, and Portland Place, London; his estate; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 15 May 1886, no. 72); purchased by (McLean).[3] William Bemrose;[4] by descent to Colonel W. Wright-Bemrose, Littleover Hill, Derby. A. Ralph Robotham, The White House, Darley Abbey, Derby, by 1947;[5] sold to (Gooden & Fox, Ltd., London); purchased August 1962 by Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia; gift 1983 to NGA.

[1] Martha Hepworth, of the Getty Provenance Index, in a letter of 23 August 1990 to Susan Davis (in NGA curatorial files), kindly provided the information that the Wedgwood family appears to have offered the painting in a number of private contract sales held at the European Museum in London. The painting, titled The Origin of Painting, is listed as no. 431 in the catalogue for April 1814, and as no. 98 in the catalogues for April 1817, March/May 1818, June 1818, March 1819, and May 1819 (copies of all are in NGA curatorial files). Hepworth explained that works featured in these "sales," for which new catalogues were printed periodically, were consigned by different sellers and remained on view in the museum until sold or reclaimed by their owners.

[2] Greaves lent the painting to the exhibition, Pictures by Italian, Spanish, Flemish, Dutch and English Masters, Royal Manchester Institution, 1831, no. 130.

[3] Probably Thomas McLean, London, the dealer, who dissolved his partnership in 1902 and sold his stock at Christie's, 15 November 1902 and 21 November 1903.

[4] Bemrose wrote The Life and Works of Joseph Wright, A.R.A., London, 1885.

[5] Robotham lent the painting to the exhibition, Joseph Wright of Derby 1734-1797, Derby Museums and Art Gallery; Leicester Museums and Art Gallery, 1947, no. 37.

Associated Names

Bemrose, William
Bentley, John
Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Gooden & Fox, Ltd.
Greaves, John
McLean, Thomas
Meigh, Charles
Mellon, Paul
Robotham, A. Ralph
Wedgwood, Josiah
Wright-Bemrose, W., Brigadier-General

Exhibition History

1785: Pictures, Painted by J. Wright, of Derby, Robins, London, 1785, no. 13.

1831: Pictures by Italian, Spanish, Flemish, Dutch and English Masters, Royal Manchester Institution, 1831, no. 130.

1910: Paintings by Wright of Derby 1734-1797, Graves Galleries, 1910, no. 93.

1934: Bicentenary Exhibition of Paintings by Joseph Wright, Corporation Art Gallery, Derby 1934, no. 35.

1947: Joseph Wright of Derby 1734-1797, Derby Museums and Art Gallery; Leicester Museums and Art Gallery, 1947, no. 37

1958: Joseph Wright of Derby, Arts Council of Great Britain, Tate Gallery, London; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 1958, no. 25, pl. xi.

1963: Painting in England 1700-1850: Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 1963, no. 372, repro. pl. 221.

1964: Painting in England 1700-1850: from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Royal Academy of Arts, London; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 1964-1965, no. 235.

1969: Joseph Wright of Derby: A Selection of Paintings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1969-1970, no. 10, repro.

1986: Gifts to the Nation: Selected Acquisitions from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1986, unnumbered checklist, repro.

1988: Pintura Británica de Hogarth a Turner, organized by the British Council, Museo del Prado, Madrid, 1988-1989, no. 34, color repro.

1990: Joseph Wright of Derby, Tate Gallery, London; Grand Palais, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1990, no. 69, color repro.

1999: An Enduring Legacy: Masterpieces from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1999-2000, no cat.

2009: La Sombra [Shadows], Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, 2009, no. 2, repro.

2010: L'Antiquité rêvée. Innovations et résistances au XVIIIe siècle [Antiquity Revived. Neoclassical Art in the Eighteenth Century], Musée du Louvre, Paris; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2010-2011, fig. 178 (French cat.), no. 90 (English cat.), repros. (shown only in Houston).

Technical Summary

The canvas appears to be finely twill woven; it has been lined, probably at the time it was sold to Paul Mellon. The ground is white, of moderate thickness. The painting is executed thinly, smoothly, and precisely, with drier, thicker highlights. There are slight pentimenti in the female figure: the upright fingers of her left hand were originally placed about 1 cm. to the right, and her right hand was further to the left; vague forms below her arms and around her profile suggest that there were also slight changes in these areas. The paint surface is slightly abraded, and has been flattened during lining. There are several large areas of discolored retouching. The thick synthetic resin varnish has discolored slightly.

Bibliography

1957: Rosenblum, Robert. "The Origin of Painting: A Problem in the Iconography of Romantic Classicism." The Art Bulletin 39, no. 4 (December 1957): 284-285, fig. 5.

1966: Irwin, David. English Neoclassical Art. London, 1966: 79-80, pl. 92.

1968: Nicolson, Benedict. Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter of Light. 2 vols. London, 1968: 1:16, 64-65, 143, 149, 243, no. 224; 2:pl. 245.

1970: Wark, Robert. Review of Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter of Light by Benedict Nicolson. In The Art Quarterly 33 (1970): 72.

1971: Cummings, Frederick. "Joseph Wright at the National Gallery." The Art Quarterly 34 (1971): 478, 481.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 424, no. 590, colo repro., as by Joseph Wright of Derby.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 439, repro.

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: 344-350, repro. 347.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 284-285, no. 231, color repro.