John Michael Wright (1617–1694) was a British portrait painter in the Baroque style. Wright trained in Edinburgh under the Scots painter George Jamesone, and acquired a considerable reputation as an artist and scholar during a long sojourn in Rome. There he was admitted to the Accademia di San Luca, and was associated with some of the leading artists of his generation. He was engaged by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands, to acquire artworks in Oliver Cromwell's England in 1655. He took up permanent residence in England from 1656, and served as court painter before and after the English Restoration. A convert to Roman Catholicism, he was a favourite of the restored Stuart court, a client of both Charles II and James II, and was a witness to many of the political manoeuvrings of the era. In the final years of the Stuart monarchy he returned to Rome as part of an embassy to Pope Innocent XI. Wright is currently rated as one of the leading indigenous British painters of his generation and largely for the distinctive realism in his portraiture. Perhaps due to the unusually cosmopolitan nature of his experience, he was favoured by patrons at the highest level of society in an age in which foreign artists were usually preferred. Wright's paintings of royalty and aristocracy are included amongst the collections of many leading galleries today.
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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1909:
The remains of the Báb, one of three central figures of the Bahá'í Faith, were interred in Haifa, Israel, by `Abdu'l-Bahá, who had retrieved them from Persia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A1b
1943:
World War II: Wermacht officer Rudolf Christoph von Gersdorff attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler by suicide bombing, but had to abort the plan and defuse the bombs at the last minute. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Christoph_Freiherr_von_Gersdorff
1946:
The Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League signed Kenny Washington, making him the first African American player in the league since 1933. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenny_Washington_%28American_football%29
2002:
British schoolgirl Amanda Dowler was abducted on her way home from Heathside School in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, resulting in nationwide media attention and a police investigation involving over 100 officers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Amanda_Dowler
2006:
A man using a hammer smashed the statue of Phra Phrom in the Erawan Shrine in Bangkok, Thailand, and was subsequently beaten to death by bystanders. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erawan_Shrine
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
armigerous (adj): Entitled to bear a coat of arms http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/armigerous
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
In the scenery of spring,
nothing is better, nothing worse; The flowering branches are of themselves, some short, some long. --Ryōkan http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ry%C5%8Dkan