John Michael Wright was a portrait painter in the Baroque style. He trained in Edinburgh under the Scots painter George Jamesone. He lived in Rome from 1647 to 1660, when he moved to England. A convert to Roman Catholicism, he was a favourite of the restored Stuart court. He painted portraits of royalty and aristocracy.
About John Michael Wright in brief
John Michael Wright was a portrait painter in the Baroque style. Described variously as English and Scottish, Wright trained in Edinburgh under the Scots painter George Jamesone. He acquired a considerable reputation as an artist and scholar during a long sojourn in Rome. There he was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca, and was associated with some of the leading artists of his generation. He was engaged by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands, to acquire artworks in Oliver Cromwell’s England in 1655. He took up permanent residence in England from 1656, and served as court painter before and after the English Restoration. A convert to Roman Catholicism, he was a favourite of the restored Stuart court, a client of both Charles II and James II. Wright’s paintings of royalty and aristocracy are included amongst the collections of many leading galleries today. He also became an accomplished linguist as well as a well as an accomplished language connoisseur. His paintings were recognised by the Archdukes of Leontyne and Leighton in the early 1650s, where his abilities were recognised as much as his abilities as a painter. In 1654 Wright travelled to Brussels, where he acquired some forty paintings – perhaps as much through collecting as through collecting gems and medals, including works attributed to Mantegna, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian and Correggio.
He is currently rated as one of the top indigenous British painters of hisgeneration, largely for the distinctive realism in his portraiture. He died in London in 1680, and is survived by his wife and a son, Thomas, who was born in Scotland in 1650. He had at least one child by her, a son of Thomas Wright, who died in 1852. He left a large collection of paintings to the Royal Collection of the British Museum. He painted portraits of royalty, aristocracy and other prominent figures, including the Duke of Cambridge, Queen Elizabeth II, Charles II, James II, William III, James VII, James I, James IV, James VI, James the Great and James the King. Wright was also a prolific collector of books, prints, medals and gems, and his paintings were catalogued by Richard Symonds, the amateur painter and royalist, in his catalogues of the early 1600s. Wright died in Rome in 1681, but his paintings can still be seen in many of the world’s leading galleries, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and at the National Gallery of Art, in London. His works are now part of the collection of the Italian Museum of Fine Arts, which is run by the Italian Society of Arts and Crafts, in which he was once a member. Wright is buried in the Piazza del Pantheon in Rome, along with his wife, Mary, his son Thomas, and a daughter, Anne. He lived in Rome from 1647 to 1660, when he moved to England.
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