A Man of War in a Harbour

Wright was Liverpool’s first marine painter of note. He was a nearly exact contemporary of George Stubbs and like Stubbs, moved to London at the end of the 1750s in order to advance his career. In London his work became more ambitious and he won the Society of Artists’ prize for marine painting three times. This work, displaying the influence of the French artist Claude-Joseph Vernet, dates from the end of the 1760s. The harbour setting must be invented but the ship itself is a real British naval vessel.