Explore the History of this artwork.
There are no known Derbyshire landscapes by Wright that are dateable before 1786. One of the problems is that many of Wright's paintings are dated by consulting Wright's accounts in his notebook. In the case of his English landscapes this has proved challenging. It is known that some of the Dovedale pictures are some of his earliest English landscapes.
Wright frequently repeated a popular subject in his paintings as he did with his Virgil's Tomb pictures and his Blacksmith's Shop paintings. In this case he made five very similar paintings. The version at Oberlin College was painted in 1785 to 1786 and sold to Edward Mundy of Shipley Hall. The college obtained it in 1951. There is a matching painting to this which is a similar view but in daylight. That painting is still in Derbyshire at Parwich Hall which is in a small village close to Dovedale.
Wright also did a daylight view of Dovedale in 1787 which he gave to the industrialist Josiah Wedgwood out of respect for his patronage on the arts. This painting is now in the Wedgwood Museum.
Two other paintings of Dovedale were sold to Sir Brooke Boothby bt. of Ashbourne Hall, who had helped Wright when he put on the first one-man exhibition in London. Boothby also purchased two views of nearby Matlock, two paintings of bridges in Rome as well as an unusual 1781 portrait of himself lying by a brook holding a book by Rousseau.
Wedgwood Blacksmith's Shop Edward Mundy Rousseau Parwich Hall Sir Brooke Boothby bt. dale Josiah Wedgwood Wedgwood Museum Ashbourne Hall Oberlin College Shipley Hall Dovedale Virgil's Tomb Derbyshire