Portrait of John Whitehurst

Enamel plaque portrait of John Whitehurst FRS (1713-1788), based upon a painting by Joseph Wright of Derby, who visited Italy during the 1770s and painted Vesuvius obsessively, producing over thirty studies of the volcano. The original portrait is held by the Derby Museum and Art Gallery.

Whitehurst was a member of Birmingham’s Lunar Society, his major work of geology was An Inquiry into the Original State and Formation of the Earth (1778). He also explored the extinct volcanic formations of the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland.