Thomas Wright

English painter, draughtsman, engraver. Brother-in-law of George Dawe. Served as an apprentice under Henry Meyer and as an assistant to William Thomas Fry (1813–17). Worked independently as a stipple-engraver and portraitist (from 1817). Married the sister of George Dawe and accompanied him to St Petersburg (1822), where he engraved his series of portraits for the Military Gallery in the Winter Palace (1822–26). Returned to England (1826), where he engraved Anna Jameson’s Beauties of the Court of Charles II and some of the plates for the folio edition of Edmund Lodge’s Portraits of Illustrious Personages of Great Britain (1826–30). Returned to Russia (1830), where he continued the work of George Dawe and published a series of portraits entitled Les Contemporains Russes (1830–45). Honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1833), academician (1836). Died in London (1849).