Wright and his wife Ann had six children, two of whom died in infancy. Anna Romana (1774–1837), their eldest daughter, was born in Rome during the Wrights’ two-year stay in Italy. This recently re-discovered portrait of her was painted around 1795 when Wright was considered the undisputed master of the ‘candlelight picture’. Wright gained a reputation for employing dramatic lighting contrasts to convey a sense of the ‘sublime’ in nature, understood in his own age as a mysterious and awe-inspiring source of power. Here, however, Wright has shown a more introverted example to suggest the intimate – and even spiritual – atmosphere created by a single flame.