In 1767 at the time of his great “candlelight” paintings of science and the Enlightenment, The Orrery and The Air-Pump, Wright of Derby developed the illness that plagued him for the rest of his life and became a patient and life-long friend of Dr Erasmus Darwin. Wright’s recorded complaints and the periodicity are highly suggestive of the major depressive illness, seasonal affective disorder.
NicolsonB. Joseph Wright of Derby, painter of light1968; Vol.1 Text and CatalogueLondon: The Paul Mellon Foundation for British Art.
2.
Uglow J. The Lunar men. The friends who made the future. London: Faber and Faber, 2002. The name “Lunar” refers to the meetings being held at the time of the full moon to assist their travel plans. The Lunar men have long been referred to as “Lunaticks”.
3.
King-HeleD. Erasmus Darwin: a life of unequalled achievement, London: Giles de la Mare, 1999, pp. 189–189.
4.
Hargreaves M. Joseph Wright of Derby and the Society of Artists of Great Britain. Brit Art J 2010; 11: 53–61. In his letter of 22 November 1775, Darwin refers to Wright coming to Bath in part “on account of his Health which has been somewhat impaired by his great Application to Painting”. His metropolitan reputation, so highly praised by Darwin, counted against him, Wright thought, as his reputation for “fire-pieces” meant “they never heard of my painting portraits”.
5.
An orrery is a mechanical instrument designed to demonstrate the orbits of the planets in relation to the Sun, each other and their moons. The first was made in England about 1704 by clockmakers who named the instrument in honour of their patron Charles Boyle (1674-1731), 4th earl of Orrery.
6.
Hoffbrand B. Washington Shirley FRS, 5th Earl Ferrers, Polymath and Grand Master 1762-4. Ars Quatuor Coronatorum 2018; 131: 269–282. There is no documentary evidence that Ferrers commissioned The Orrery but Peter Perez Burdett (1735-1793) an artist and cartographer who is portrayed as the young man taking notes on the left in the painting was a mutual friend of Ferrers and Wright. Ferrers provided security for a loan made by Wright to Burdett which was never fully repaid. Wright, apart from his art practice, loaned money throughout his life mostly at 5% interest paid annually. (Ref. 12, p. 4).
7.
Egerton J. Wright of Derby. London, Tate Gallery, 1990, p.225. Wright’s portrait of Whitehurst (c. 1782-3) is considered one of his finest. It indicates the sitter’s interests in volcanoes and the geology of Derbyshire, the subjects of many of the artist’s landscape paintings.
8.
Fraser D. Joseph Wright of Derby and the Lunar Society. An essay on the artist’s connection with science and industry. See ref. 7, pp. 15–24.
Darwin studied in Cambridge and Edinburgh before establishing his medical practice in 1756 in Lichfield where through mutual friends he became a lifelong friend of the Birmingham manufacturer Matthew Boulton (1728–1809). Boulton was meeting with Whitehurst through whom Darwin met Wright. Whitehurst, Boulton and Darwin with Josiah Wedgwood formed the original nuclear Lunar Society. Franklin was in London as the agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly and had demonstrated electrical experiments at the Royal Society.
9.
Barker EE. New light on The Orrery. Joseph Wright and the representation of astronomy in 18th-century Britain. Brit Art J 2000; 1: 29–37. Barker in consideration of the origins of the inspiration for The Orrery discounts input from the “Lunaticks” but appears to overlook Wright’s prior acquaintance with Whitehurst and Darwin. The date of Ferguson’s Derby lectures of 1762 given by earlier authors is incorrect.
10.
The Air-Pump was purchased by Dr Benjamin Bates (1736–1828) who had also bought Wright’s first exhibited picture Three persons viewing the ‘Gladiator’ by Candle-light of 1765. (Ref. 7, pp.61–63). Bates was recommended by Darwin for a medical practice in Aylesbury and has gained notoriety as doctor to Sir Francis Dashwood’s Hellfire club. (Powers J. Experimentising the Bird in the Air-Pump. Derby: Quandary Books, 2017, pp.39–41).
11.
ElliottPA. The Derby philosophers: science and culture, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009, pp. 58–63.
12.
Barker EE. Documents relating to Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797). The Walpole Society 2009; 71: 1–216. Wright’s letters are presented in date order.
13.
Ref.12, p.106.
14.
Keynes M. Portraits of Dr Erasmus Darwin F.R.S. by Joseph Wright, James Rawlinson and William Coffee. Notes Rec R Soc Lond 1994; 48: 69–84. There are a number of copies and versions of the 1770 and 1792 portraits.
15.
PosnerE. William Withering versus the Darwins. History of Medicine1975; 6: 51–57.
16.
Bamford L and Wallis J. Joseph Wright of Derby. Derby Museums, 2017, p.76. Wright’s letter to Leigh Philips describes an improving weakness of his right side and speech difficulties.
17.
Ref.12, p.172.
18.
Bemrose W. The Life and Works of Joseph Wright commonly called “Wright of Derby”. London: Bemrose and Sons, 1885, p.79. Ref.1, pp.130–133.
19.
Melrose S. Seasonal affective disorder: an overview of assessment and treatment, https://doi.org/10.1155/2015/178564 (accessed 18 March 2020).
20.
Ref.3, p.307.
21.
Both volumes of Zoonomia (more than 500,000 words!) are freely available on-line as e- books thanks to Project Gutenberg, 2005.
22.
Jackson SW. Melancholia and depression; from Hippocratic times to modern times. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986, pp. 140, 274–310.
23.
Ref.22, pp.142–146.
24.
Ref.3, pp.278, 296.
25.
Scull A. Madness in civilisation. London: Thames and Hudson, 2015, p.156. The first workable design was that of Joseph Mason Cox (1763–1813) proprietor of a Bristol madhouse.
26.
Ref.3, pp.126–128.
27.
McNeil M. Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013. Robert Waring Darwin, a successful physician was the father of Charles Darwin, author of On the Origin of Species (1859)..
28.
Egerton J. Wright, Joseph, of Derby (1734-1797). In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2008. Ref.3, pp.207–208. The View of Gibraltar is now lost. “Calpè” here refers to “Gibraltar”.
29.
Ref.3, pp.258–259.
30.
Daniels S. Joseph Wright. London: Tate Gallery, 2002, pp.24–26. Wright was perhaps even more influenced by images created by Laurence Sterne’s novel A Sentimental Journey of 1768. Hayley helped in the selection of paintings and writing the catalogue for Wright’s 1785 London exhibition.
31.
Ref.30, pp.44–46. Darwin met Rousseau when the latter was in England in 1766–7 staying at Wootton Hall, Staffordshire whose owner suffered from gout. Brooke Boothby, a close friend of both Darwin and Wright, was given the manuscript of Rousseau’s autobiographical Dialogues on a visit to Paris in 1776 which he published at his own expense in Lichfield in 1780. Wright’s portrait of a fashionably dressed Boothby, lying by a brook in an attitude of contemplation holding a book by Rousseau, is in the Tate Gallery, London.
32.
Ref.30, pp.61–77.
33.
Ref.16, p.76.
34.
Ref.2, pp.435–439. Darwin in The Economy of Vegetation likened the French people to Gulliver in Lilliput bound by “the Strings of Confessors and Kings.”.
