William Brooke (1694–1763)

The portrait of William Brooke, painted around 1760 and now in the Danum Gallery in Doncaster, belongs to Wright's early career as a portraitist in the East Midlands. Wright had trained in London under Thomas Hudson before returning to Derby, where he built a steady practice among the local gentry and professional class. Hudson had been Reynolds's own teacher, and his influence on Wright is visible in this portrait's conventional three-quarter format and solid technical foundation. Wright's early Derby portraits from this period show the competent but relatively conventional manner he absorbed from London training, before his revolutionary experiments with artificial light subjects transformed both his technique and his reputation. The sitter, William Brooke, was part of the Derbyshire gentry network that formed the core of Wright's early clientele. These straightforward portrait commissions provided the financial security that allowed Wright to pursue his more experimental subjects: the candlelight scenes of scientific experiment, candlelit figures, and industrial subjects that made him one of the most original painters in Georgian England. Brooke's portrait thus represents the necessary foundation on which Wright's more celebrated innovations were built.

The early portrait demonstrates the solid, workmanlike technique Wright learned from Hudson, with careful rendering of the sitter's features and costume in a conventional three-quarter format.