Celebrating the tercentenary of equine artist George Stubbs
Horse racing became popular among the upper classes in England during the eighteenth century, and by 1750 the Jockey Club had been formed to control races run at Newmarket. The first professional painter to cater for this affluent and growing market was perhaps the first specialist painter of horses in Europe, George Stubbs, who was born three centuries ago today, on 25 August 1724.
Born in Liverpool, on the north-west coast of England, little is known of his upbringing and training, except that he was largely self-taught. He started an apprenticeship, but left after a few weeks, and much of his knowledge of human anatomy was gained from a surgeon working in York. After visiting Italy in 1754, Stubbs rented a farmhouse in the Lincolnshire countryside, where he spent eighteen months dissecting horses to produce a book on their anatomy.
Stubbs moved to London with his drawings in about 1759, and was soon commissioned to paint three large works for the Duke of Richmond. These marked the start of his long and lucrative career painting the horses of his patrons.
George Stubbs (1724-1806), Molly Long-legs with her Jockey (1761-62), oil on canvas, 101 x 126.8 cm, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, England. Wikimedia Commons.
In 1761-62, Stubbs painted this portrait of Molly Long-legs with her Jockey, although the latter isn’t wearing his racing colours. This mare was bred and raced by Fulke Greville (1717-1806) of Wiltshire, then sold to Frederick St John (1748-1787), Viscount Bolingbroke. Between 1759 and 1761, she won three races at Newmarket for 200 guineas each.
George Stubbs (1724-1806), Pangloss (c 1762), oil on canvas, dimensions not known, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN. Wikimedia Commons.
In about 1762, Stubbs was commissioned by Lord Grosvenor to paint his horse Pangloss. Named after a character in Voltaire’s Candide, he was foaled in 1755.
George Stubbs (1724-1806), Whistlejacket (c 1762), oil on canvas, 292 x 246.4 cm, The National Gallery, London. Wikimedia Commons.
At about the same time, Stubbs painted his most famous work, an innovative portrait of Whistlejacket seen against a blank background. This was one of a series of paintings he made for Charles Watson-Wentworth, Marquess of Rockingham, who was later to serve twice as Prime Minister. Whistlejacket was named after a popular cold remedy composed of gin and treacle, and was foaled in 1749. He started racing in 1752, and became one of the most successful stallions in the north of England at the time. The Marquess bought him in 1756, and three years later he won a four-mile race at York before being retired to stud. He was beaten only four times in his seven-year racing career.
Stubbs also painted the dogs of noblemen and women, and some other well-known animals.
George Stubbs (1724-1806), Zebra (1763), oil on canvas, 102.9 x 127.6 cm, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT. Wikimedia Commons.
In 1762, Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz was given a zebra to celebrate her marriage of the previous year to King George III. It was soon visited in its paddock at Buckingham Palace in London, by fascinated crowds, and became the centre of humour, referred to as the Queen’s Ass. The following year, Stubbs painted it for the Queen, in Zebra (1763). Apparently it also became known for its ill-temper, as it kicked at visitors.
George Stubbs (1724-1806), The Kongouro from New Holland (1772), media not known, 60.5 x 71.5 cm, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London. Image by David Westwood, via Wikimedia Commons.
A decade later, Stubbs painted one of the earliest images of the newly discovered kangaroo, in The Kongouro from New Holland from 1772. This species had first been named as kanguru on 12 July 1770, while repairs were being made to James Cook’s ship HMS Endeavour on the banks of the Endeavour River, in Far North Queensland, Australia.
George Stubbs (1724-1806), Firetail with his Trainer by the Rubbing-Down House on Newmarket Heath (1773), oil on wood panel, 83 x 101.5 cm, Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa. Wikimedia Commons.
Stubbs continued to paint racehorses. The following year, he depicted Firetail with his Trainer by the Rubbing-Down House on Newmarket Heath. Foaled in 1769, Firetail’s successful racing career started in 1773, when Stubbs painted him in a landscape setting he had made in a study from eight years earlier. It’s thought that by this time Firetail was owned by the Hon. Edward Foley MP.
In his earlier years, Stubbs exhibited with the Society of Artists of Great Britain, but in 1775 he transferred to the new Royal Academy of Arts, founded seven years earlier. At that time, he started painting on enamel, and during the 1770s produced some larger works for Josiah Wedgwood, the successful pottery entrepreneur.
George Stubbs (1724-1806), Reapers (1795), Enamel on Wedgwood biscuit earthenware, 76.8 x 102.9 cm, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT. Wikimedia Commons.
Stubbs’ Reapers from 1795 is painted in enamel on Wedgwood biscuit earthenware, and strongly reminiscent of early harvest paintings of the Brueghels. By this time, the artist counted the Prince of Wales among his patrons.
George Stubbs (1724-1806), A Monkey (1799), oil on panel, 70 x 55.9 cm, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, England. Wikimedia Commons.
He painted this portrait of A Monkey in 1799, when he had embarked on another illustrated book of anatomy.
George Stubbs (1724-1806), Study of a Racehorse in Action: Galloping to Left, a Semi-Anatomical Study, with Skin Flayed to Show Action of Muscles (date not known), red chalk and graphite on thin, smooth, cream wove paper, 17.1 x 27 cm, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT. Wikimedia Commons.
This undated Study of a Racehorse in Action: Galloping to Left, a Semi-Anatomical Study, with Skin Flayed to Show Action of Muscles, made in red chalk and graphite, demonstrates his thorough approach, which was to be a model to his successors.
George Stubbs died in London on 10 July 1806, at the age of eighty-one. It wasn’t until well into the twentieth century that his work was recognised and fully appreciated, though, when Paul Mellon started his art collection with one of Stubbs’ equine portraits. That collection grew into what’s now the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, whose first director was the art historian Basil Taylor, who had first drawn attention to Stubbs’ paintings. Mellon’s collection grew into the largest of Stubbs’ paintings in the world, and his Centre into the finest collection outside Britain.
However, Stubbs’ anatomical accuracy wasn’t matched by his skills of observation, in showing horses galloping with all four legs in full extension and well clear of the ground. In 1872, Leland Stanford, who had made his fortune from the American railroads, hired the eccentric British photographer Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904) to use photographic techniques to establish whether the galloping horse does ever assume this posture.
Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904), The Horse in Motion (1878), photographs on poster, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. Wikimedia Commons.
It took Eadweard Muybridge several years to devise an ingenious system using a dozen cameras to settle the matter, but in 1878, that answer came in this photomontage in The Horse in Motion: in fact, the moment that all four hooves are clear of the ground is when the legs are tucked under the horse’s body, not when they are fully extended.
