George Stubbs

The latest article in the Greatest Britons series, by Louise Scott, looks at George Stubbs, the artist most famous for his equine paintings.

Early Career

George Stubbs was born in Liverpool on 25^th August 1724, the son of a currier and leatherseller.

George showed a natural ability for painting portraits, and was apprenticed, briefly, to a Lancashire painter and engraver called Hamlet Winstanley. He tired of the copying work, and he became a self-taught artist.

During the 1740s, he worked as a portrait painter in the north of England, and travelled among towns including Wigan, Leeds, York and Hull. Whilst in York, he studied human anatomy at York County Hospital from about 1745 to 1751. Whilst in York, he developed such a good knowledge of anatomy that he was able to teach the subject to the hospital’s medical students. Like Da Vinci, Stubbs had a great scientific curiosity and a passion for anatomy. One of his oldest surviving works in a series of illustrations he carried out for a textbook on midwifery, which was published in 1751.

At the age of 30, he visited Italy, in order to convince himself that “nature was, and always is, superior to art, whether Greek or Roman.”

Horses

In 1754, Stubbs rented a farmhouse in the Lincolnshire village of Horkstow, where he lived with his common-law wife Mary Spencer and their son George Townly-Stubbs. Here he spent eighteen months dissecting horses and producing anatomical drawings, earning money from portrait commissions from Lady Nelthorpe. Stubbs’ reasoning for the horse work was that, as the Jockey Club had been formed in 1750 and racing was revived as a sport, then bloodstock breeders would find a detailed reference work on the equine anatomy extremely useful.

In around 1759, he moved to London in search of a suitable engraver, and here he quickly became established as a painter of horses and wild animals.

In 1766, he published his famous work The anatomy of the Horse. The original drawings for this are now in the Royal Academy collection.

By now he had moved to the address where he was to spend the rest of his life – 24 Somerset Street, Portman Square. This house had a large studio attached and a stable block which could accommodate four horses.

Stubbs is best known for his painting Whistlejacket, depicting a prancing chestnut horse which attacked Stubbs during one of the sittings. The painting had been commissioned by the horse’s owner the 3^rd Marquess of Rockingham. It is now exhibited in the National Gallery in London. He produced many portraits of horses, both individuals and groups, and sometimes the paintings featured hounds too, and often the horse’s groom was included in a painting. He would also paint human portraits, and between 1761 and 1776 he exhibited his paintings at the Society of Artists, moving to the newly-founded Royal Academy later on.

Stubbs was also sought out by naturalists who wanted paintings of other animals. The explorer Sir Joseph Banks commissioned him to paint the first-ever kangaroo brought to England. William Hunter requested an Indian antelope and a moose and John Hunter commissioned him to paint a baboon, an Indian rhinoceros (drawn at Pidcock’s Menagerie in Spring Gardens in 1772), a macaque and a yak. The kangaroo, and some of the models, were just stuffed specimens but others, such as the rhino, were living.

Later Years

Stubbs became a member of the Royal Academy in 1781. In the 1790s, he received military commissions from the Prince of Wales, who was Colonel of the 10^th Light Dragoons. Stubbs painted several members of this regiment, including a mounted sergeant, a trumpeter, a sergeant-at-arms and a private presenting arms. These paintings were well-received and were to become his only recorded military subjects.

In 1795, he began work on what was to be his final project, and a follow-on from The anatomy of the Horse – A Comparative Anatomical Exposition of the Human Body with that of a Tiger and a Common Fowl. This ambitious project, which caused serious financial difficulty, occupied Stubbs right until the day of his death – 10^th July 1806. The majority of the 142 drawings that Stubbs had completed for this project were sold at Christie’s in 1827.

Stubbs came to be regarded as one of the finest artists of his time, and the greatest equestrian artist. His work The anatomy of the Horse is regarded as a masterpiece.