Jean of Arc
Hand coloured antique print
Scene from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 1: Act 5, Scene 4
John Masey Wright (1777 - 1866) Watercolour-painter, was born in Pleasant Row, Penton Place, Pentonville, London, where his father was an organ-builder. Wright had a remarkable ear for music and astonished listeners by his extempore playing. He was apprenticed to another organ builder but he was dismissed for making sketches on the organ pipes. Subsequently he worked for Broadwood, as a piano tuner, before turning to art as a career. He was given the opportunity of watching Thomas Stothard [q. v.], who befriended him when he was about sixteen; he never painted from living models.
About 1810, Wright became associated with Henry Aston Barker [q. v.], for whose panorama in the Strand he did much excellent work, including the battles of Coruña, Vittoria, and Waterloo. He was also employed for a time as a scene-painter at the opera-house. But his reputation rests upon his small compositions illustrating Shakespeare and other poets, which were extremely numerous and executed with admirable taste and feeling in the manner of Stothard.
He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1812 to 1818, and in 1824, was elected an associate of the Watercolour Society; he became a full member in 1825, and thenceforward to the end of his long life was a regular exhibitor.
Line engraving with etching on paper by B Eyles from an original drawing by J M Wright. Hand coloured. Published c. 1830
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