A Grotto in the Gulf of Salerno, Moonlight Joseph Wright c1780

Wright made two drawings in a cavern looking onto the coast near Naples, from which he later created settings for a number of dramatic paintings. A group of Banditti appear in one, plotting the murder of Hector according to Wright, and the expelled adulteress Julia in another. The version at Derby becomes all the more eerie by contrast, like a stage set awaiting the arrival of the actors.

Bacchus representing Autumn (from a set of the Seasons) and Jester from Commedia dell’ ArteWilliam Duesbury & Co c1770 and 1765

Emblematic figures representing the seasons were a common theme in painting and porcelain modelling alike. What is notable about this figure of Bacchus, god of wine, is the sensual modelling of the body.
Orgies honouring Bacchus were notorious for their sexual and criminal character. They were eventually banned by the Roman Senate in 186 BCE.
Commedia dell’Arte was an unwritten and improvised form of drama in which actors wearing masks embellished stock characters. Zanni, the jester, was best known as an astute servant and trickster with a body permanently bent from bowing and scraping.

Augmentation

The average age of aristocrats taking the Grand Tour to Italy was eighteen. Once away from their parents many fell into a dissolute and debauched lifestyle. Far from gaining the cultural education expected by their benefactors, groups of callow, arrogant, rich young men fell into gambling, drinking and whoring. Their servants fared little better abroad due to their deep distrust of all things foreign.
Although Joseph Wright was over twice the average age of a Tourist, he could not have avoided them, and indeed his lodgings in Rome were in a house where ‘upwards of 40 English students’ were also residing.