George Stubbs’ Noble Creatures

English painter George Stubbs made his name with animal portraits that revealed the individual dignity of their subjects
George Stubbs Brown and White Norfolk or Water Spaniel, 1778 Oil on canvas 31.75 x 38.25 inches Yale Center of British Art; Paul Mellon Collection
George Stubbs Spanish Pointer, 1776 Oil on canvas 23.62 x 27.26 inches Neue Pinakothek, Munich
George Stubbs Black and White Spaniel Following a Scent, 1793 Oil on canvas 25 x 30 inches Virginia Museum of Fine Art
George Stubbs A Bay Hunter with Two Spaniels, 1777 Oil on canvas 27 x 23.26 inches Private Collection
George Stubbs Hound Coursing a Stag, 1762 Oil on canvas 39.375 x 49.5 inches Philadelphia Museum of Art
George Stubbs A Liver and White King Charles Spaniel in a Wooded Landscape, 1776 Oil on canvas 23.46 x 27.48 inches

The love affair between the English and their dogs is one of the most well-worn of clichés, conjuring ideas of sentimentality, country living and —with reference to the issue of breeding and bloodlines—perhaps of a kind of class-consciousness and snobbishness which have traditionally been counted as national characteristics. Like all clichés, the relevance and truthfulness of these associations may be questionable, but the peculiar affection of the English upper classes for their animals was an assumption of many commentators in the 18th century and has a special relevance for the history of the visual arts.




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