Joseph Wright of Derby, A.R.A.* (1734-1797)

Portrait of Miss Frances Warren, kneeling full length in a wooded park, wearing a blue dress and holding a lamb in her arms

Details

Joseph Wright of Derby, A.R.A.* (1734-1797)
Portrait of Miss Frances Warren, kneeling full length in a wooded park, wearing a blue dress and holding a lamb in her arms
The reverse of the relining canvas is inscribed 'Frances Warren dau of/th Hon John Pollard Warren/by Wright/of Derby'
oil on canvas
49 x 39in. (124.5 x 99cm.)

Provenance

with P. and D. Colnaghi and Co., Ltd., London.
The Sweetman Family; Sotheby's, London, March 12, 1986, lot 50.
Anon. Sale, Sotheby's, New York, Jan. 12, 1989, lot 145, where purchased by the present owner.

Literature

B. Nicholson, Joseph Wright of Derby, Painter of Light, 1968, I, pp. 30, 33 and 224-5; II, p. 27, pl. 48.

Lot Essay

The present lot is still clearly painted under the influence of Thomas Hudson, with whom Wright trained from 1751-3 and again for a further fifteen months in 1756. As Nicholson points out (loc. cit., pp. 30-1), this is the artist's first full-length portrait. The setting, with the sitter placed in a landscape, was the starting point for his development of a major compositional scheme, culminating in 1770-1 with the portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Coltman, now in the National Gallery, London (Inv. no. 6496).