Stubbs horse painting value

Self-trained, Stubbs learnt his skills independently from other great artists of the 18th century such as Reynolds and Gainsborough. Stubbs' output includes history paintings, but his greatest skill was in painting animals such as horses, dogs and lions , perhaps influenced by his love and study of anatomy.

George stubbs wife

His series of paintings on the theme of a lion attacking a horse are early and significant examples of the Romantic movement that emerged in the late 18th century. He enjoyed royal patronage. His painting Whistlejacket hangs in the National Gallery, London. Stubbs was born in Liverpool , the son of a currier , or leather-dresser, John Stubbs, and his wife Mary.

Stubbs worked at his father's trade until the age of 15 or 16, at which point he told his father that he wished to become a painter. Thereafter, as an artist Stubbs was self-taught. He had had a passion for anatomy from his childhood, [ 2 ] and in or around , he moved to York, in the North of England , to pursue his ambition to study the subject under experts.

In Stubbs visited Italy. In he rented a farmhouse in the village of Horkstow , Lincolnshire, and spent 18 months dissecting horses, assisted by his common-law wife, Mary Spencer. The original drawings are now in the collection of the Royal Academy. Even before his book was published, Stubbs's drawings were seen by leading aristocratic patrons, who recognised that his work was more accurate than that of earlier horse painters such as James Seymour , Peter Tillemans and John Wootton.

In the 3rd Duke of Richmond commissioned three large pictures from him, and his career was soon secure. By he had produced works for several more dukes and other lords and was able to buy a house in Marylebone , a fashionable part of London, where he lived for the rest of his life. A famous work, Whistlejacket , a painting of the thoroughbred race horse rising on his hind legs, commissioned by the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham , is now in the National Gallery in London.