Derby, Corn Exchange, Art and Industrial Exhibition, 1866;
Derby, Corporation Art Gallery, Wright of Derby, 1934, no. 40;
Derby Art Gallery, Joseph Wright Exhibition, 4th-29th October 1947, no.6;
Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, Pictures by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1950, no. 34;
Bedford, Pictures from Country Houses, 1952, no. 31;
Tate Gallery, Joseph Wright of Derby, 1958, no. 26

Wright painted Stephen Jones in 1785, du🧔ring a period in which he painted some of his most famous portraits and in which he made his significant break from the Royal Academy. As Benedict Nicolson has pointed out in his celebrated biography of the artist, in Wright's later portraits "success or failure depends above all on the amount of sympathy Wright was capable of extending to a sitter". Jones was a local man, probably from a similar background as Wright hꦕimself and sharing the artist's love of music. When he found himself in sympathy with the sitter, Wright was without rival in his ability to go straight to the sitter's character without the need for incidental trappings. His success in this portrait of Stephen Jones, and in the slightly earlier portrait of Christopher Heath (Private Collection), led Nicolson to describe them with justification as "two of Wright's most magnificent portraits of the 80's".

Following his trip to Italy, Wright returned to Derby in September 1775, and decided that he had to re-establish himself as a portrait painter. Gainsborough had left Bath for London in the previous year, and Wright doubtless felt that he could take advantage of this and obtain patronage in the fashionable spa town. However, his two years in Bath were a disaster. As he wrote to his brother, Richard, on 9th February 1776, "the great people are so fantastical and whimny, they created a world of trouble". One of the first portraits painted by Wright on his return to Derby was the portrait of Richard Cheslyn of Langley Hall, a barrister and landowner. This portrait shares with that of Stephen Jones an unaffected directness. A few years later he painted Robert Holden, whose relaxed and natural pose, with his arm resting on the back of a chair, echoes such earlier masterpieces as his portrait of Thomas Staniforth (Tate Gallery), but also looks forward to the portrait of Stephen Jones. Wright kept his links with London through his regular appearance as exhibitor at the Royal Academy between 1778 and 1782, and in 1781 he was made Associate of the Royal Academy. However, relations with the Academy deteriorated, and Wright was particularly insulted when Edmund Garvey was elected Academician in 1783 in preference to himself. He refused the offer of full membership in 1784, and in 1785, the year he painted Stephen Jones, he decided to put on his own exhibition of his paintings at Robins' Rooms in London. Though he later patched up this quarrel, his patronage continued to be concentrated on local families such as the Gisbornes (whose group portrait of 1786 is one of his masterpieces) and in particular on such great local entrepreneurs as Sir Richard Arkwright (whose great portrait of 1789 marks the culmination of Wright's success in painting sitters with whom he had a particular empathy).

Stephen Jones worked for forty years as agent for the Vernon family at Sudbury Hall. He is recorded as starting his employment with the family in 1753 under George, 1st Lord Vernon (1710-1780) and continuing with his son George, 2nd Lord Vernon (1735-1812) until he retired in 1791. Sudbury Hall is only a shor✅t distance from Derby and it seems likely that Jones was a friend of the artist who was not only his near contemporary, but also shared his love of music. We know little of Jones's musical talents though the catalogue for the 1934 exhibition suggests that he was "court violinist to George III". Wright's love of music however is well documented. Denby, the organist at All Saints Church, held weekly concerts at Wright's house where Wright played the flute (we know from an early entry in his account books that in about 1760 he paid £55.11.0. for a "German flute").