JOSEPH WRIGHT OF DERBY, A.R.A. | PORTRAIT OF NICHOLAS HUTCHINSON, HALF-LENGTH, WEARING A BROWN COAT AND WHITE STOCK

By descent in the family of the sitter, to Jeremy Hutchinson Q.C. (1915–2017), later Lord Hutchinson of Lullington.

B. Nicolson, Joseph Wright of Derby. Painter of Light, London 1968, vol. I, pp. 27, 29 and 209, cat. no. 96, reproduced vol. II, p. 9, pl. 20.

The sitter, Nicholas Hutchinson, was a surgeon in Southwell, in the Newark area of Nottinghamshire. Wright is known to have gone to Newark in the early weeks of 1760, and to have painted a number of portraits in that area, including the present work. Not only is the style typical of this time, but details such as Hutchinson's coat, left undone – which creates a sense of weighty three-dimensionality and lends a certain feeling of informality to the nevertheless imposing likeness – foreshadow Wright's mature portraits.

This painting has descended until recent years in the family of the sitter. The last owner, Jeremy Hutchinson Q.C. (1915–2017), later Lord Lullington, was a lawyer of some note who defended cases including D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, and that of Christine Keeler. His father was St John Hutchinson K.C. (1884–1942), known as ‘Jack’, who must be the ‘Jack’ referred to on the label previously affixed to this painting, which reads: ‘Nicholas Hutchinson of Newark/ Jack's great great grandfather’. His wife, Mary Hutchinson, was closely connected to the Bloomsbury circles and is remembered by her 1915 portrait by Vanessa Bell (Tate Britain, London), who was aware that her sitter was mistress of her husband, Clive.¹

¹ https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bell-mrs-st-john-hutchinson-t01768