ABSTRACT
Joseph Wright of Derby’s best-known painting, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768; Plate 12.1), depicts a fashionable company in attendance at a lecture given by a natural philosopher, who is demonstrating the necessity of air to life by showing his audience (and us) a white bird struggling for breath in the partial vacuum that has been created within the glass receiver at the top of the pump. It is the climactic moment of the experiment, when the bird may die, or when the lecturer may restore it to health by opening the stopcock he grasps between the fingertips of his left hand. The suspense is heightened by the theatrical chiaroscuro, which highlights the various reactions of the spectators, ranging from the evident distress of the two young girls through to the calmer responses and apparent unconcern displayed by other members of the group.
