Antiques: The artist renowned for horse power
No half measures about young George Stubbs. When he took an interest in anatomy, he went further than any budding artist before or since, revolutionising the way the horse was depicted and becoming the greatest equestrian artist Britain has ever known.
His methods were not for the squeamish. To quench his thirst for knowledge, Stubbs spent years in York, attending the County Hospital, where he dissected human cadavers, his skill with a knife making him a figure of "vile renown" locally.
Later he spent 18 months in a North Lincolnshire farmhouse dissecting the bodies of horses until he was a world expert, publishing his seminal work The Anatomy of the Horse, in 1766, later prized by equestrian specialist Sir Alfred Munnings (1878-1959) and, for the drawings, by Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-1873). By now Stubbs was a wealthy man, with well-connected patrons commissioning portraits of racehorses. One was the Marquess of Rockingham, who employed him to paint perhaps Stubbs' most famous equine portrait, the Arabian chestnut stallion Whistlejacket (1762), at a time when York was transforming into a playground for the rich. The horse had won his owner 2000 guineas at York Racecourse in 1759 after beating Brutus, owned by a Mr Turner.
But let's start at the beginning. Stubbs, born in Liverpool in 1724 to a reasonably prosperous leatherworker, began his artistic career at 16 when he met painter and engraver Hamlet Winstanley (1698-1756), who employed him to copy Old Masters at Lord Derby's gallery at Knowsley Hall. With no regular training and largely self-taught, Stubbs made money by painting portraits in Leeds and later York, where he settled for six years, studying human and animal anatomy and cutting up cadavers at the recently-opened County Hospital.
After travels overseas, Stubbs moved to a farmhouse at Horkstow, near Barton-upon-Humber, in 1756 for his stint of dissecting horse bodies, drawing and recording his findings - gruesome work resulting in a new understanding of horse anatomy and in some of the most accurate horse pictures ever painted. After moving to London in 1760 he published his famous book, in which he engraved his own plates. He also found time to illustrate the groundbreaking treatise on midwifery by Dr John Burton (1710-1771), who worked in York County Hospital.
Whistlejacket, now in the National Gallery, is perhaps his most famous painting and most expensive at auction is Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath, with a Trainer, a Stable-Lad, and a Jockey (1765), which fetched £22.4 million at Christie's in 2011. Other famous equine works include Horse Frightened by Lion, Fighting Stallions, Otho with John Larkin Up and Mares and Foals in a River Landscape. Reproduced here is A dark bay thoroughbred in a landscape, which sold for more than £1.9 million at Bonhams in 2003, and Eclipse at Newmarket with a groom and jockey (1770), which realised £441,000 at Christie's, London, in 2023.
To celebrate the 300th anniversary of his birth last year, eight sculptures of horses painted by Stubbs were commissioned. The unique sculptures, half of them life-size, were part of a Stubbs Trail around North Lincolnshire, where Stubbs conducted his anatomical studies, created by contemporary artists in collaboration with local schools and community groups.
All eight went under the hammer at a charity sale at Potters Auctions of Messingham, Scunthorpe, raising £10,850. Top price, £2,000, was for George, at 83in tall the largest sculpture, created by Gillian Higgins, an expert in equine anatomy. Skyscraper (a Derby winner in 1789), the work of Hull artist Caitlin Smith, helped by local primary schoolchildren, made £1,400 and others, including representations of the famous stallion Anvil, and Lord Grosvenor's Sweet William and Polyanthus, fetched £800-£1,500 each.
Auctioneer Paul Potter said: "The horses are jaw-droppingly impressive sculptures that have fascinated thousands of people who enjoyed the Stubbs Trail during the 300th anniversary celebrations. The looks on the faces of saleroom visitors when they met a life-size horse among the china cabinets were priceless."
Stubbs, who in his heyday commanded higher prices for his work than contemporary Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), painted other animals, too, including dogs, lions, tigers, cheetahs, zebras. kangaroos and dingoes. Perhaps most famous of his 50 dog paintings was one of a 15-stone Newfoundland called Nelson, owned by Frederick, Duke of York, one of 40 dogs kept by the Duke's wife, Princess Frederica, at their country estate in Surrey. The painting, commissioned in 1803 when Stubbs was almost 80, went missing for more than 150 years after being sold for £9 in 1827 but resurfaced at Sotheby's in London in 2003 to realise £2.25 million.
Stubbs died in London in 1806, aged 81.