[1] Wright is notable for his use of tenebrism, an exaggerated form of the better known chiaroscuro effect, which emphasizes the contrast of light and dark, and for his paintings of candle-lit subjects.

Deciding to become a painter, as a seventeen-year old youth Wright went to London in 1751 and for two years studied under Thomas Hudson, the master of Joshua Reynolds.

He varied his work in portraiture by the production of subjects with strong tenebrism under artificial light, with which his name is chiefly associated, and by landscape painting.

Having established himself in his profession Wright married Ann (also known as Hannah) Swift, the daughter of a Derbyshire lead miner, on 28 July 1773.

[6] Although he spent a great deal of productive time in Naples, Wright never witnessed any major eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

[7] On his return from his working sojourn in Italy he again established himself in England as a portrait-painter, this time at the fashionable spa resort of Bath.

[3] Over the years he became increasingly asthmatic and nervous about the house, and for these complaints he was treated by his friend and leading medical doctor Erasmus Darwin.

In his latter years Wright was a frequent contributor to the exhibitions of the Society of Artists, and to those of the Royal Academy, of which he was elected an associate in 1781 and a full member in 1784.

He, however, declined the latter honour on account of a slight that he believed that he had received, and severed his official connection with the Academy, although he continued to contribute to the exhibitions from 1783 until 1794.

There are similarities to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston's holding, Grotto by the Seaside in the Kingdom of Naples with Banditti, Sunset (1778).

Wright also had connections with Erasmus Darwin and other members of the Lunar Society, which brought together leading industrialists, scientists, and philosophers.

[10] These paintings represent a high point in scientific enquiry that began to undermine the power of religion in Western societies.

Joseph Priestley, a member of the Lunar Society, left Britain in 1794 after his Birmingham laboratory was smashed and his house burned down by a mob objecting to his outspoken support for the French Revolution.

[11] In light of this comment, Wright's painting of the bird in the air pump, completed more than twenty years earlier, seems particularly prescient.