Abraham Pether

Edward Strutt, 1st Baron Belper (1801–1880), Kingston Hall, Nottinghamshire, by 1870;

Private collection, England;

Whence anonymously sold, London, Sotheby's, 8 March 1989, lot 77, for £2,800;

Where acquired by a family member of the present owners.

Possibly A. Graves, The Society of Artists of Great Britain 1760–1791, The Free Society of Artists 1761–1783, a completely dictionary..., Bath 1907, p. 196, no. 251 ('A Fire; by Moonlight', as part of a pair).

Possibly London, Society of Artists of Great Britain, 1790, no. 251 ('A Fire; by Moonlight' as part of a pair);

Derby, Midland Counties Exhibition, 1870, no. 9;

Derby, Joseph Wright of Derby, 1883, no. 36;

Derby, Derby Art Gallery, Bicentenary Exhibition of the Works of Wright of Derby, 1934;

Derby, Derby Art Gallery, Joseph Wright Exhibition, 4–29 October 1947, no. 51.

Although exhibited numerous times over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a painting by Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797), this work is in fact by his near-contemporary Abraham Pether (1756–1812). Although his training was with George Smith of Chichester (1713/14–1776), Pether's interest and treatment of light is often credited to his admiration for the works of Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714–1789). His atmospheric night-time scenes in particular, which so often recall Vernet's serene marines and landscapes, earned him the nickname 'Moonlight' Pether.

This painting is a rare instance of the artist's treatment of fire, which in terms of composition looks towards Wright's famous and popular scenes depicting cottages on fire. Ingeniously, this particular example is complimented by a highly detailed view of London in the background, taken from the south and looking towards the north-east of the city. London was a prominent source of inspiration when it came to Pether's experiments in this mode. In 1809 the artist captured the dramatic fire at the Old Drury Lane Theatre in two signed canvases, one of which is in the Guildhall Art Gallery Collection, and another that sold at auction in 2019.¹

Note on Provenance

This painting was formerly in the collection of the Strutt family of Kingston Hall, Nottinghamshire, who were bestowed the title of Baron Belper in 1856. The Belper collection once held paintings by Wright of Derby, which included the artist's portrait of their ancestor Jedediah Strutt (1720–1797), now in the Derby Museum and Art Gallery.² It is perhaps this fact which lead to the reattribution of this painting to Wright by 1870.

¹ Oil on canvas, 74 x 107 cm. ; https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/old-drury-lane-theatre-on-fire-london-24-february-1809-51017; London, Christie's, 5 July 2019, lot 205 for £25,000. Oil on canvas, 72 x 103.8 cm. ; https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-6217048

² Oil on canvas, 127 x 101 cm.; https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/jedediah-strutt-17261797-61205