Malcolm Warner, Robin Blake "Stubbs & the Horse" Yale University Press 2004

Malcolm Warner, Robin Blake "Stubbs & the Horse" Yale University Press 2004.

Board covers, dust jacket, colour and black-and-white illustrations, 229 pages.

Dimensions 27x25 cm.

A versatile genius whose work includes paintings, prints and detailed anatomical studies, George Stubbs (1724-1806) was fascinated by horses. This book presents for the first time the full range of his equestrian images, from refined portraits of racehorses to violent scenes of horses attacked by lions in the wild. Taking full account of the associations and status of the „noble horse” in eighteenth-century Britain and the colourful world of its followers – both high and low – the authors examine Stubbs's work from various points of view and offer many new interpretations. Malcolm Warner discusses how horses were regarded in Britain in Stubbs's day, the unexpected connection between his compositions of horses and lions and the creation of the English thoroughbred, and his classicism. Robin Blake examines the young Whig noblemen who were Stubbs's first patrons, the grooms, jockeys, trainers and other attendants who appear in his horse portraits, and his curious relationship with the Prince of Wales. The book also includes an essay by the conservators Lance Mayer and Gay Myers on Stubbs's experiments with wax and enamel.