Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/141

 ture he painted for the ‘Shakespeare Gallery,’ and the only one the alderman bought, was a scene from the ‘Tempest,’ ‘Prospero's Cell, with the Vision.’ Wright thought he should be paid as highly as any artist engaged on the ‘Shakespeare’ (including Reynolds), but Boydell would not give him more than 300l. for it, and hinted that that was more than it deserved. At the sale of the ‘Shakespeare Gallery’ in 1805 it was bought by the Earl of Balcarres for 69l. 6s. The other pictures from Shakespeare were the tomb scene in ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ and one of ‘Antigonus in the Storm’ from the ‘Winter's Tale,’ with a bear drawn from a sketch supplied by Sawrey Gilpin. The former was never sold, and the latter was bought by Wright's friend, John Leigh Philips. During all these years Wright went on painting portraits, with an occasional poetical composition, but most of these were not exhibited in London, and his public reputation was mainly based on his ‘candlelight’ pieces and pictures of fire and moonlight, until he obtained a wider popularity from the well-known engraving by J. Heath from his pathetic picture of ‘A Dead Soldier, his Wife and Child, vide Langhorne's “Poems,”’ which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1789. Heath bought the picture for 105l. before he engraved it, and reaped a large profit from his venture.

After 1790, though Wright went on painting for years, he produced nothing worthy of special record, except some landscapes painted from sketches taken on a visit to the lakes in 1793. Though not an old man, he had been more or less of an invalid and a dietarian ever since his return from Italy. In 1783 he wrote that he had suffered ‘a series of ill-health for these sixteen years past,’ and in 1795 that he had been ‘ten months without touching a pencil.’ He died on 29 Aug. 1797 at 26 Queen Street, Derby, whither he had removed from St. Helen's House about five years before, and was buried on 1 Sept. in St. Alkmund's Church. In 1773 he married Ann Swift, who died, aged 41, on 17 Aug. 1790.

In his youth Wright was handsome and of a sprightly disposition. He was fond of society, and played well on the flute. After his return from Italy he lived a very quiet life, much esteemed by all who knew him. His friends and acquaintances included few more notable people than Josiah Wedgwood [q. v.], Erasmus Darwin [q. v.], Sir Richard Arkwright [q. v.], and William Hayley [q. v.], who, as well as Darwin and others, celebrated his art in many bad verses. He was of a kind and generous disposition, giving away many of his pictures and drawings to his friends.

At his death Wright was little known as a portrait-painter, except in Derby and its neighbourhood, and it is doubtful whether even now his skill in this branch of art is sufficiently recognised. The only opportunity of anything like a complete study of his works of this kind was afforded by the collection of his paintings at the Derby Corporation Art Gallery in 1883, which comprised about sixty of his portraits. The list, though full of local notables, contained few names of wide celebrity, except those of Sir Richard Arkwright, the inventor of the ‘spinning jenny,’ and Erasmus Darwin. In comparison with Reynolds or Gainsborough he was a homely, almost a domestic, portrait-painter, but his portraits have the great merits of sincerity and thoroughness, show true insight into character, are finely modelled, and well painted. Among the finest are his portraits of himself, Jedediah Strutt, Christopher Heath, John Whitehurst, Mr. Cheslyn, Mrs. Compton, and Lady Wilmot and her child. He was very successful with children, whom he presented with all their artlessness and simplicity, and his powers as a colourist (which, if not of the highest, were considerable) are perhaps best displayed in some of his groups of young people, like those of the little Arkwrights with a goat, and the little Newtons picking cherries.

A small selection from his pictures was a prominent feature of the winter exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1886. Wright was an able and versatile artist, and the great reputation which he made in his lifetime is fairly sustained at the present day. As a painter of candlelight pieces, especially in those compositions ‘The Orrery,’ ‘The Gladiator,’ and ‘The Air-pump,’ where genre and portrait are combined with dramatic action, he has no rival in the English school; as a portrait-painter he holds a high, if not the highest, rank, and among painters of sentiment his ‘Edwin’ and ‘Maria’ entitle him to consideration. His pictures of Vesuvius and fireworks have, however, now ceased to attract, and his daylight landscapes want atmosphere. Richard Wilson [q. v.] good-naturedly hit their weakness when he agreed to exchange landscapes with Wright. ‘I'll give you air,’ he said, ‘and you'll give me fire.’

Fine mezzotint engravings from Wright's works did much to spread his reputation in his lifetime and have served to preserve it since. Valentine Green engraved ‘The Orrery,’ ‘The Air-pump,’ and others; Earlom ‘A Blacksmith's Shop’ and ‘An Iron Forge;’