Jedediah Strutt

Joseph Wright of Derby painted Jedediah Strutt around 1790, depicting one of the founding figures of the English cotton-spinning industry — Arkwright's business partner and the inventor of the Derby rib machine — in a formal portrait that acknowledged his status as one of the new industrial class whose wealth was transforming British society. Strutt, like Arkwright, was a self-made man whose portrait by Wright connects the artist's sustained engagement with the industrial world around him to the specific individuals who were creating that world. The portrait's combination of personal characterization and the implicit significance of the sitter's industrial achievement gives it a weight beyond conventional portraiture.

Wright portrays Strutt with the dignified simplicity appropriate to a practical industrialist, avoiding aristocratic affectation. The warm palette and direct characterization reflect Wright's empathy with the entrepreneurial class he knew personally.