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.

Joseph Wright of Derby (1734-1797), An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, 1768, oil oncanvas,72 x 96 1/16 in. Presented by Edward Tyrrell, 1863.

We may speculate that one of the reasons for which Wright moved to Liverpool was a sense that he was not sufficiently valued by his colleagues, whether in Derby or in London. Indeed, when the Royal ...

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 ...