John Michael Wright Biography

John Michael Wright (1617–1694) was an English portrait painter whose career extended from the courts of Europe to Restoration England. Born in London, he travelled widely and developed a style noted for its carefully observed faces, rich fabrics and restrained elegance.

In 1636 Wright became an apprentice to the Scottish painter George Jamesone in Edinburgh. During the 1640s he travelled to Rome, where he became a Catholic and was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca in 1648. His time in Italy exposed him to continental portraiture and the Baroque painters of Rome. He subsequently worked for Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands, before establishing himself in London in 1656.

Wright painted Charles II and members of the English aristocracy, although the court often preferred the more fashionable style of Sir Peter Lely. In 1673 Wright was appointed Picture Drawer in Ordinary to the King. Among his significant commissions were portraits of the judges responsible for resolving property disputes after the Great Fire of London.

His James Cecil, 4th Earl of Salisbury, and His Sister Lady Catherine (c.1668–69) depicts two aristocratic children, with careful attention to their dress and individual expressions. The painting is at Hatfield House in Hertfordshire.

Other sitters included the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, the poet John Dryden and Sir Robert Shirley. Wright's portraiture often emphasised character and individuality rather than theatrical display.

He travelled to Dublin in the late 1670s and returned to Rome during the 1680s. Wright died in London in 1694. His surviving pictures provide an important visual record of the people and society of seventeenth-century Britain.