Wright painted it in 1768, when he was 34. The reciprocal loan would be in exchange for Thomas Gainsborough’s “The Blue Boy,” set to begin a controversial four-month exhibition in January at ...

The scientist in the remarkable painting “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump” (1768)—which is now the focus of an exhibition, “Science and the Sublime: A Masterpiece by Joseph Wright ...

Wright’s painting, “An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump,” dates from 1768, approximately the same time as “The Blue Boy,” painted around 1770.