Joseph Wright of Derby, A.R.A.

Passed from the Mundy Family to a cousin;
By descent to his son G.S. Clark-Maxwell;
By whom sold, London, Christie's, 19 November 1965, lot 53 (as [Gilbert] Stuart);
L.B. Sanderson Esq.;
Thence by descent.

B. Nicholson, Joseph Wright of Derby, Painter of Light, 2 vols., London 1968, vol. I, pp. 17, 36, 98, 198–99, cat. no. 64, reproduced vol. I, fig. 85.

Joseph Wright referred to Captain Richard French of the Royal Horse Guards as a 'good friend' in a letter to his sister from Rome in April 1774.¹ Captain French married Millicent, née Mundy (1746–89), daughter of Wrightson Mundy of Markeaton Park, Co. Derby, whose portrait Wright also painted.² The entry for Captain French's portrait in Wright's Account Book, immediately precedes Millicent's; both portraits cost 10 Guineas, and it seems that they were very likely pendants. Captain French and his wife lived at Abbots Hill, Derby, and Broadfield Hall, Hertfordshire.

Captain French was one of the founding members of The Derby Philosophical Society, founded in 1783 by Earsmus Darwin (1731–1802), grandfather of Charles Darwin. Captain French's son Richard Forester French went on to become president of the society following Darwin's death in 1803. 

1. W. Bemrose, The Life and Works of Joseph Wright, A.R.A. commonly called 'Wright of Derby', London 1885, p. 31.
2. Sold in these rooms, 9 July 2009, lot 11.