1734-1797
Except for two years in Italy (1773-75) and a visit to Liverpool, Wright stayed in Derby, where hi painted haunting landscapes with special lighting effects. Moonligh and candlelight were his specialties.
In Italy he witnesses the magnificent eruption of Vesuvius, which he painted (below). Back in Derby his patrons included pioneers of science and industry like Wedgwood and Arkwright. Wright thus introduced scientific experimentation as subjects for paintings. See Experiment with an Air Pump in the Tate (1768).
His best known portrait is that of Sir Brooke Boothby (1781) lying in a woody glade reading Rousseau (below).
An Iron Forge (1772)
Vesuvius in Eruption, with a View over the Islands in the Bay of Naples (1776-80)
Sir Brooke Boothby (1781)
A Moonlight with a Lighthouse, Coast of Tuscany (Exhibited 1789)