John Michael Wright - The Family of Sir Robert Vyner [1673], originally uploaded by Gandalf's Gallery.
The sitters are Sir Robert (1631-1688) and his wife Mary (née Whitchurch; died 1674), the wealthy widow of Sir Thomas Hyde, whom he married in 1665; Bridget Hyde (1662-1734), Lady Vyner's daughter by her first marriage; and Charles Vyner (1666-88), their only son. Sir Robert, a wealthy goldsmith and banker, made the regalia for the coronation of Charles II, 1661. He lent extensively to the government and by the time this portrait was painted was already in financial difficulties because these loans had not been repaid. He was Lord Mayor of London in 1674, but was declared bankrupt in 1684. He died broken-hearted at the death of his only son.
John Michael Wright (May 1617 – July 1694) was a British portrait painter in the Baroque style. Wright trained in Edinburgh under the Scots painter George Jameson, and acquired a considerable reputation as an artist and scholar during a long sojourn in Rome. There he was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca, and was associated with some of the leading artists of his generation. Wright is currently rated as one of the leading indigenous British painters of his generation and largely for the distinctive realism in his portraiture. Perhaps due to the unusually cosmopolitan nature of his experience, he was favoured by patrons at the highest level of society in an age in which foreign artists were usually preferred. Wright's paintings of royalty and aristocracy are included amongst the collections of many leading galleries today.
[Oil on canvas, 1448 mm x 1956 mm]
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