John Michael Wright (1617–1694)

• Was an English painter.
• He painted portraits of prominent and important personalities in the 17th century.
• On 6 April 1636, the 19-year-old Wright was apprenticed to George Jamesone, an Edinburgh portrait painter.
• Among his works are paintings by Thomas Hobbes and Charles II (England). 

• During his stay in Rome in the 1640s, Wright became a Catholic.

• In 1654, after a decade in Rome, Wright travelled to Brussels where his abilities were recognised by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria then governor of the Spanish Netherlands
• Leopold employed him not as an artist, but as an advisor on antiquities.

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