Inscribed on verso of frame, lower center: "This picture|is the|property of|my daughter|Mary Dorothy|Barnett|and is lent|to me for|my life|H. M. Lowbridge|Baker"
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
In a New Light: 500 Years of British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2025-04-01 - 2026-01-30)Hogarth, Reynolds, Turner: British Painting and the Rise of Modernity (Fondazione Roma Museo - Palazzo Sciarra, 2014-04-14 - 2014-07-20)George Stubbs (Neue Pinakothek - Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, 2012-01-26 - 2012-05-06)Connections (Yale Center for British Art, 2011-05-26 - 2011-09-11)Stubbs & The Horse (Kimbell Art Museum, 2004-11-14 - 2005-02-06)Stubbs & The Horse (The Walters Art Museum, 2005-03-05 - 2005-05-20)Stubbs & The Horse (The National Gallery, London, 2005-06-29 - 2005-09-25)All The Queen's Horses (National Horse Racing Museum, 2003-04-26 - 2003-08-23)George Stubbs in the Collection of Paul Mellon: a Memorial Exhibition (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2000-02-14 - 2000-05-15)George Stubbs in the Collection of Paul Mellon: a Memorial Exhibition (Yale Center for British Art, 1999-04-30 - 1999-09-05)This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1998-05-01 - 1998-07-05)This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Queensland Art Gallery, 1998-07-15 - 1998-09-06)This Other Eden : British Paintings from the Paul Mellon Collection at Yale (Art Gallery of South Australia, 1998-09-16 - 1998-11-15)Noble Exercise - The Sporting Ideal in Eighteenth-Century British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 1982-07-14 - 1982-09-19)Painting in England 1700-1850 - From The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon (Yale University Art Gallery, 1965-04-15 - 1965-06-20)
Publications:
Carolina Brook, Hogarth Reynolds Turner : British painting and the rise of modernity, Skira editore, Rome, 2014, pp. 225, 279, cat. no. 75, fig. 75, ND466 .H65 2014 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 220-221, N590.2 .A83 (YCBA)Malcolm Cormack, George Stubbs in the collection of Paul Mellon : A memorial exhibition, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1999, p. 45, no. 25, NJ18 St915 G54 1999 (YCBA)Frederick J. Cummings, Catalogue of the exhibition : Romantic art in Britain : Painting and drawings, 1760-1860, Detroit and Philadelphia, 1968, pp. 51-53, N6766 C8 + oversize (YCBA)Stephen Deuchar, Noble exercise : the sporting ideal in eighteenth-century British art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1982, p. 47, no. 74, ND1388 G7 D48+ (YCBA)Richard Dorment, Beauty of the Beast, George Stubbs' meticulous paintings of horses made him greatest artist-scientist since Leonardo , Calgary Herald, July 9, 2005, p. G8, available online (Orbis)Judy Egerton, British Sporting and Animal Paintings 1655-1867 : A Catalogue : The Paul Mellon Collection, , Tate Publishing, London, 1978, p. 74, no. 73, pl. 28b, ND1383 G7 B75 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Firing the Artist, TLS, the Times Literary Supplement, Issue no. 3772, June 21, 1974, p. 669, Film S748 (SML) Also available Online in TLS Historical Archive (ORBIS)Luke Herrmann, The Paul Mellon Collection at Burlington House, Connoisseur, vol. 157, December 1964, pp.216,217,218, fig. 8, N1 C75 + OVERSIZE (YCBA)Kentucky Horse Park, All the queen's horses, the role of the horse in British history , Lexington, KY, 2003, p. 67, no. 1.2, SF284 G7A55 2003 + (YCBA)Julia Marciari-Alexander, This other Eden : Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1998, pp. 122-123, no. 48, ND1314.3 Y36 1998 (YCBA)Robert Michael Neuman, Baroque and Rococo art and architecture, Pearson, Boston, 2013, p. 401, , N6415.B3 N48 2013 (YCBA)Onno Dag Oerlemans, The Meanest Thing that Feels, Anthropomorphizing Animals in Romanticism , Mosaic: a Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, v. 27, no. 1, March, 1994, p, 1, fig. 1, Internet ResourcePainting in England 1700-1850 from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, The Royal Academy of Arts Winter Exhibition 1964-65., , Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK, 1964, p. 74 (v. 1), no. 262, N5220.M45 R69 1964 (YCBA)Constance-Anne Parker, Mr. Stubbs the horse painter, J. A. Allen, London, 1971, pp. 72-82, ND497.S93 P37 + Oversize (YCBA)Paul Mellon's Legacy : a passion for British art [large print labels], , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, v.1, N5220 M552 P381 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Herbert W Rott, George Stubbs, 1724-1806, science into art , Prestel, Munich ; New York, 2012, pp. 170-71, cat. no. 40, NJ18.St915 A1213 2012 + OVERSIZE (YCBA)Simon Schama, The Yale Centre for British Art, TLS, the Times Literary Supplement, , May 20, 1977, p. 619, TLS Historical ArchiveT. N., Memoirs of George Stubbs, Esq. the Celebrated Painter of Horses, The Sporting Magazine, vol. 32, July 1808, pp. 56-57, Sporting 2090 (YCBA Rare Books)Basil Taylor, George Stubbs: The lion and horse theme, The Lion and Horse Theme , Burlington Magazine, Vol. 107, No.743, February 1965, pp. 81-87, app. no. 15, fig. 38, N1 B87+ (YCBA) Available online on JSTORRobert R. Wark, A horse and lion painting by George Stubbs, Bulletin of the Associates in Fine Arts at Yale University, vol. 22, November 1955, p. 2, fig. 2, V 1983 (YCBA)Malcolm Warner, Stubbs and the Horse, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2004, pp. 100-01,107, 179-80, cat. no. 40, fig. 101, NJ18 .St915 W37 (YCBA)Yale University Art Gallery, Painting in England, 1700-1850, from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon : [exhibition at] Yale University Art Gallery, April 15-June 20, 1965, , vol. 1, W. Clowes and sons, New Haven, 1965, p. 46 (v. 1), no. 174, ND466 Y35 (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
Stubbs painted a number of variations on the theme of a horse being attacked by a lion. Given that animal painting was regarded by theorists as one of the lowest branches of art, he was quite deliberately testing its limits, showing animals in the kind of serious, dramatic encounter normally reserved for scenes from human history, the Bible, and mythology. Here the horse seems suddenly to have stopped, throwing its mane and tail forward, on seeing the lion emerge menacingly from the shadows of a cave. A much earlier version of the present composition focusing on the horse's near-human expression was the subject of a poem by Horace Walpole: I feel his feelings: how he stands transfix'd! --- How all the passions in his mien are mix'd! --- How apprehension, horror, hatred, fear, --- In one expression, are concenter'd there! In 1777 Stubbs published his own etching from this painting and in 1780 used the print as the basis for a plaster mold from which ceramic bas-reliefs were cast by Wedgwood. Both the etching and bas-relief are shown in this bay. Gallery label for Connections (Yale Center for British Art, 2011-05-26 - 2011-09-11)