Currently not on view

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

Joseph Wright of Derby, 1734–1797; born and died Derby, England

2018-158

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.”

View full record

Information

Object Number

2018-158

Maker

Joseph Wright of Derby

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dates

ca. 1780

Dimensions

77 × 64.2 cm (30 5/16 × 25 1/4 in.) frame: 89.9 × 77.2 × 5.7 cm (35 3/8 × 30 3/8 × 2 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Museum purchase, Surdna Fund

Type

oil paintings, paintings

Subject

waiters, men, portraits

Materials

canvas, oil paint

Raffled at Derby Town Hall; acquired at raffle by Daniel Parker Coke MP (1745-1825); Joseph Strutt (1765-1844), by 1835; Edward Strutt, 1st Baron Belper (1801-1880), Kingston Hall, Northamptonshire, by descent; The Hon. Henry Strutt, 2nd Baron Belper (1840-1914), Kingston Hall, Northamptonshire; Algernon Strutt, 3rd Baron Belper (1883-1956), Kingston Hall, Northamptonshire; The Hon Peter Algernon Strutt (1924-2007), Kingston Hall, Northamptonshire; Strutt Sale, Sotheby’s, London, 19 November, 1986, lot 54; Zankel-West Collection, New York; Christie’s, London, December 7, 2017, lot 35; Lowell Libson & Jonny Yarker, London; 2018 purchase by Princeton University Art Museum

https://www.jstor.org/stable/45401204

<p>"Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2018," <em>Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University</em> 77/78 (2017-18)</p>, p. 170; p. 171 (illus.)

9760 2017