The Blacksmith’s Shop

Commissioned from Wright by Peniston Lamb, first Viscount Melbourne, the canvas stayed at Melbourne Hall in Derbyshire through the Lamb and Cowper descents and was shown in London at the Society of Artists of Great Britain in 1771, the year Wright signed and dated it. The museum records that he laid silver leaf into the paint to carry the glow of the forge, and it was among the night subjects — forges, demonstrations, moonlit ruins — with which the Derby painter made his name outside London. It entered the gallery with the Paul Mellon collection.