JOSEPH WRIGHT OF DERBY (Derby 1734-1797)

Portrait of Edward Abney of King Newton, seated three-quarter-length, in a green coat and black breeches, holding a letter in his left hand, before a red curtain

Details

JOSEPH WRIGHT OF DERBY (Derby 1734-1797)
Portrait of Edward Abney of King Newton, seated three-quarter-length, in a green coat and black breeches, holding a letter in his left hand, before a red curtain
inscribed on the letter 'Ed.wd. Abney Esq.r/King Newton/Derby.e'
oil on canvas
49½ x 39¼ in. (125 x 99.5 cm.)

Provenance

By descent through the sitter's family to Rev. E.H. Abney, 1870.
with Thos. Agnew and Son, London.
Anon. Sale, Sotheby's, London, 18 November 1970, lot 41 (£2,500 to Warren).
Anon. Sale, Sotheby's, London, 9 July 1997, lot 31.

Literature

B. Nicolson, Joseph Wright of Derby: Painter of Light, London, 1968, p. 174.
B. Nicolson, 'Wright of Derby: addenda and corrigenda', The Burlington Magazine, CXXX, no. 1027, October 1988, p. 751, pl. 34.

Exhibited

Derby, Corn Exchange, A Catalogue of the Art and Industrial Exhibition..., 1866, no. 96.
Derby, Midland Counties Exhibition, May 1870, no. 806.
Denver Art Museum, 600 Years of British Painting, The Berger Collection at the Denver Art Museum, 1998-1999, p. 136, illustrated.

Lot Essay

According to Pilkington in A View of the Present State of Derbyshire with an Account of its most remarkable Antiquities (Derby, 1789, II, p. 83), the sitter lived in Lord Melbourne's house at King Newton, Derbyshire in the late 1780s, the date of execution of the present portrait.

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