Joseph Wright of Derby likely created this work as a study for The Hermit (around 1769, also known as A Philosopher by Lamplight, now in the Derby Museum). It was originally purchased in a posthumous studio sale by Richard Arkwright Junior, Wrights great patron famously known as “the richest commoner in England”. The study is from Wrights celebrated early period of candlelit paintings, and temporary export bans have been placed on two such works from the late 1760s in the past two years. The bar on the first, An Academy by Lamplight (1769)—sold for a record £7.3m (with fees) at Sothebys in December 2017—has since been lifted. The second, Two Boys with a Bladder (1768-1770), valued at £3.5m, still awaits a verdict from the Arts Council England.
This panel by the Sienese painter Giovanni di Paolo is one of four predellas designed to accompany a panel of Saint Claire in an altarpiece that now sits in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena. Another predella from the same series is also included in this sale (est £600,000-£800,000). Both were seized by the Nazis from the collection of the Jewish telecommunications magnate Harry Fuld. Sold to the Bode Museum in Berlin in 1940, they were restituted back to Fulds family earlier this year. Should this work sell, it will likely make a record for the Quattrocento master, which currently stands at $885,750 and was achieved in 2001 at Sothebys New York.
