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Virgil's Tomb by Moonlight
(Joseph Wright of Derby)

Measurements
101 x 127 cm
Type
Oil on canvas
Provenance

Listed in Wright’s account book as ‘Virgil’s Tomb £63’ among pictures of c. 1778-9; Mrs C.E. Arkwright, by 1934; thence by descent.

Literature

B. Nicholson, ‘Joseph Wright of Derby; Painter of Light’, London 1968, Vol. 1, pp83-4 & p258, no. 287, Vol. 2, p147, pl232; L. Bertelsen, ‘David Garrick and English Painting, Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. II, No. 3, 1978, pp320-4; J.B. Trapp, ‘The Grave of Virgil’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. XLVII, 1984, p26; J.B. Trapp, ‘Virgil and the Monuments’, Proceedings of the Virgil Society, Vol. 18, 1986, pp1-17.

Exhibited

London, Royal Academy, 1779, no. 359; Derby, Corporation Art Gallery, ‘Wright of Derby Bicentenary Exhibition’, 1934, no. 37; London, Tate Gallery, and Liverpool Walker Art Gallery, Arts Coucil of Great Britain, ‘Joseph Wright of Derby’, 1958, no.

Where is It?
Acquired from The Matthiesen gallery by The Metropolitan Museum, New York.
Historical Period
Neoclassicism - 1780-1820
Subject
Historical events
School
British
Catalogue
Price band
Sold or not available