Portrait of Old John, Head Waiter at the King's Head Inn in Derby

Wright worked in the Midlands, the region of central England that was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution. “Old John,” the subject of this portrait, was the headwaiter at the main coaching inn of Derby. Wright’s account book records the portrait as “raffled for & paid”; it has been surmised that the proceeds of the raffle were meant to provide a pension for the elderly man. A description of him written in 1780 notes that he had been a waiter at the inn for forty-three years and was previously a porter to two families of the local gentry for twenty-six years. At eighty-seven, he was “somewhat decrepid [sic] and stooping . . . [but] still [retained] a rubicund complexion without a single wrinkle, and a lively, strong memory without the least impairment.”