A modest pencil drawing of the wreathed head of the god Silenus will go on pubic show for the primary time in Derby this week. The drawing is the earliest recognized work by the town’s most well-known son, Joseph Wright of Derby—made in 1745, when he was simply 11 years previous.
Just lately rediscovered in a personal household assortment, the drawing exhibits the boy struggling to study his craft, six years earlier than his formal artwork schooling started when he entered the London studio of Thomas Hudson. He would go on to turn out to be internationally well-known for scenes of figures in inky darkness picked out by flames from a blacksmith’s forge, candle lit scientific experiments or erupting volcanoes.
A serious exhibition will open on the Nationwide Gallery in London in Autumn and journey on to Derby subsequent 12 months. Nevertheless, Life on Paper, the exhibition on the Derby Museum and Artwork Gallery, concentrates on extra intimate and private works, drawings, letters and sketches. This features a web page of tender drawings of Wright’s child daughter, born in 1774 throughout his honeymoon in Italy, and his self portrait on the age of 40, which the museum managed to amass after a public attraction in 2022.
The top of Silenus is proudly inscribed “Jos Wright 11 Years”, and should have been copied from a print in a e book from his father’s library—or, curator Lucy Bamford thinks, presumably from an inn signal within the metropolis.
Joseph Wright of Derby: Life on Paper, Derby Museum and Artwork Gallery, 23 Might 23-7 September 2025
