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Creator:
Joseph Wright of Derby, 1734–1797
Title:
Self-Portrait
Date:
ca. 1780
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
24 x 28 3/4 inches (61 x 73 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1997.23
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Subject Terms:
artist | chiaroscuro | coat | Georgian | hat | headgear | male | oval | painter | portrait | self-portrait
Associated People:
Wright, Joseph, of Derby (1734–1797), painter
Access:
Not on view
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:7218
Export:
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IIIF Manifest:
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Wright produced at least nine self-portraits during the course of his long career. As Benedict Nicolson observed nearly fifty years ago, all of them bring out "one side or another of this contradictory but in no way unaccountable character: the vivacity and the mildness, the conviviality and the querulousness, the vigor and the frailty-many things short of duplicity and meanness." This fine self-portrait originally belonged to Wright's eldest daughter, Anna, and her husband, a surgeon, and must date from about 1780, the period following Wright's frustrating and unsuccessful sojourn in Bath as a portrait painter to "the great people," whom (unlike Gainsborough) he found irritating, "fantastical and whimmy."

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2005

Off the Map: Provenance of a Painting (Nasher Museum of Art, 2021-09-18 - 2022-01-09) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Artists' Portraits (Yale Center for British Art, 2002-02-06 - 2002-03-24) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Edward Bradbury, Wright of Derby, Time (London), a monthly ..., vol. 8, no. 50, May 1883, p. 594, Available Online : British Periodicals database N.B. This is a journal, it is not The Times; Also available in hard copy : A88 T48 (SML) [ORBIS]

Jorge Calado, Haja luz, uma histâoria da quâimica atravâes de tudo , IST Press, Lisbon, 2011, p. 155, fig. 3.29, N72 S3 C35 2011 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Calendar, Burlington Magazine, vol. 140,no.1139, February 1998, p. 159, fig. 96, N1 B87 + OVERSIZE (YCBA) Available online through JStor. [YCBA]

Matthew Craske, Joseph Wright of Derby : Painter of darkness, The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, New Haven, pp. 68-69, fig. 41, NJ18.W95 C72 2020+ (YCBA) [YCBA]

Stephen Daniels, Joseph Wright, Tate Publishing, London, 1999, pp. 30-1, NJ18 W95 D25 1999 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Derby Museums & Art Gallery, Catalogue of the Paintings by Joseph Wright, A.R.A., commonly called "Wright of Derby", together with some Original Drawings, and a complete Collection of Prints after his Works on view in the Corporation Art Gallery, The Strand, Derby, Derby, 1883, p. 12, no. 46, Fiche B41 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Judy Egerton, Joseph Wright of Derby: "Self Portrait in a Fur Cap", Museum Studies, vol. 18, no 2, 1992, p. 183, N6767 A77 1992 (YCBA) Also available online through JStor. [YCBA]

Judy Egerton, Wright of Derby, Tate Publishing, London, 1990, p. 257, NJ18 W95 +E54 1990 Oversize (YCBA) [YCBA]

Catherine M. Gordon, British paintings Hogarth to Turner, Frederick Warne, London, 1981, p.78, ND466 .G67 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Eleanor H. Gustafson, Museum Accessions - Joseph Wright's 'Self-Portrait' Painting, Magazine Antiques, vol. 155, June 1999, p. 814, Yale internet resource [ORBIS]

Lucinda Hawksley, Fifty British Artists You Should Know, Prestel, Munich : New York, NY, 2011, p. 41, N6796 .H39 2011 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Llewellynn Jewitt, Wright of Derby, Art Journal, vol. 60, December 1866, p. 377, J10 Ar74 + (LSF) [ORBIS]

Long-lost Painting is Acquired by the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Bulletin and Calendar, vol. 26, no. 15, December 1997 - January 1998, http://www.yale.edu/opa/arc-ybc/ybc/v26.n15.news.08.html [Website]

National Portraits, All the Year Round, vol. 10, no. 237, November 1863, p. 254, A88 124 (SML) Available online in British Periodicals database. [ORBIS]

Benedict Nicolson, Joseph Wright of Derby : Painter of Light, Paul Mellon Foundation for British Art, London, New York, 1968, p. 230 (v. 1), no. 170, NJ18 W95 +N53 Oversize (YCBA) [YCBA]

Benedict Nicolson, Wright of Derby: Addenda and Corrigenda, Burlington Magazine, vol. 130, October 1988, p. 750, fig. 31, N1 B87 + (YCBA) Also available online at JSTOR. [YCBA]

Paul Mellon's Legacy : a passion for British art [large print labels], , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, v. 3, N5220 M552 P381 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]


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