Portrait of Colonel Charles Heathcote
Joseph Wright of Derby (British, 1734–1797)
c. 1771–72
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 127 x 100 cm (50 x 39 3/8 in.)
- Culture
- England
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
Assuming a relaxed but commanding pose, Colonel Charles Heathcote (1734–1797) stands beside a large oak tree in the foreground of an expansive landscape. He wears military dress, the single epaulette on his right shoulder designating his rank as colonel. Wright’s composition demonstrates his new-found fascination with landscape: while the figure is relatively smoothly painted, the landscape is painted far more energetically, using thickly applied daubs of color.
