Print based on a well-known painting by Joseph Wright. Four men and three children are gathered around a large brass orrery, luminous in the otherwise darkened room. The men are engaged in study and the children gaze at the glowing orrery in wonder.

According to the web site of the Derby Museum and Art Gallery in England, which owns the original painting, The Orrery was painted c. 1764-1766 and first exhibited in 1766. The original oil on canvas painting is 58 x 80 inches. The museum provides the following interpretation:

"An Orrery is an early form of planetarium. Wright's masterpiece depicts a 'Natural Philosopher', using the instrument to demonstrate the workings of the solar system before a mixed and enrapt audience. Wright's use of such a subject for a large exhibition painting is wholly original. He chooses his moment carefully -- a light has been placed in the position of the sun, probably to demonstrate the causes of eclipses. The rays from this flood over the group and act as a painted metaphor for the light of knowledge that the group receives, and indeed for the 'Age of Enlightenment' itself. The group are at once united and isolated from the darkness and ignorance that surround them - this message is further strengthened by the way the light just catches the drape being drawn aside from the books of written knowledge in the background."

Joseph Wright was a celebrated 18th century painter whose works reflect the exciting period of intellectual inquiry and discovery that was the British Enlightenment. Wright's subjects included portraits, landscapes, subjects from literature and scenes of industry and scientific equipment. The Derby Museum and Art Gallery in his hometown of Derby, England, has the largest collection of the artist's work in any public gallery in the world, and The Orrery is one of the museum's highlights.

References:

Barker, Elizabeth E. "New light on The Orrery: Joseph Wright and the representation of astronomy in 18th-century Britain." British Art Journal, 1, no. 2 (Spring 2000): 29-37.

"Joseph Wright: The Orrery." 4 October 1999. Derby, U.K.: Derby Museum and Art Gallery. http://www.derby.gov.uk/museums/docs/lato_i.htm