Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.617
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Subject Terms:
forest | landscape | animal art | zebra (mammal)
Associated Places:
Africa
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
In a New Light: Paintings from the Yale Center for British Art (Yale University Art Gallery, 2023-03-24 - 2023-12-03)William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum (Yale Center for British Art, 2019-02-14 - 2019-05-20)Enlightened Princesses - Caroline, Augusta, Charlotte, and the Shaping of the Modern World (Yale Center for British Art, 2017-02-02 - 2017-04-30)The Critique of Reason : Romantic Art, 1760–1860 (Yale University Art Gallery, 2015-03-06 - 2015-07-26)George Stubbs (Neue Pinakothek - Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, 2012-01-26 - 2012-05-06)An American's Passion for British Art - Paul Mellon's Legacy (Yale Center for British Art, 2007-04-18 - 2007-07-29)An American's Passion for British Art - Paul Mellon's Legacy (Royal Academy of Arts, 2007-10-20 - 2008-01-27)Great British Paintings from American Collections: Holbein to Hockney (Yale Center for British Art, 2001-09-27 - 2001-12-30)Great British Paintings from American Collections: Holbein to Hockney (The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, 2002-02-01 - 2002-05-05)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)Stubbs - An Exhibition in Honor of Paul Mellon (National Gallery of Art, 1985-04-11 - 1985-05-04)George Stubbs (1724-1806) Tate Gallery (Tate Britain, 1984-10-17 - 1985-01-06)George Stubbs (1724-1806) Tate Gallery (Yale Center for British Art, 1985-02-13 - 1985-04-07)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:
A Zebra, a tigress and a cheetah : new light on Geirge Stubbs's exotic animal subjects, British Art Journal, Vol. 15, Autumn 2014, pp. 99-100, 101, 107, pl. 1, N6761 B74 OVERSIZE (YCBA)A Great Collection of British Pictures in Virginia, The Times (London), , May 1, 1963, p. 22, Times Digital ArchiveSir Geoffrey Agnew, Yale's 1700 Mellon Pictures, The Times (London), , April 28, 1977, p. 9, Times Digital ArchiveJohn Baskett, Painting in England: 1700-1850: the collection of English paintings formed by Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon : on exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, until August 18th, , Connoisseur, Vol. 153, London, June 1963, pp. 102, 105, N1 C75 + (YCBA)John Baskett, Paul Mellon's Legacy: a Passion for British Art: Masterpieces from the Yale Center for British Art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, pp. 1, 6, 252, no. 23, fig, 1, pl. 23, N5220 M552 P38 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA)John Baskett, Zebra by George Stubbs, , October 30, 2008, http://www.youtube.com/v/VVp_eX-JKRAJohn Baskett, Paul Mellon's legacy : a passion for British art : masterpieces from the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, p. 252, N5220.M552 P38 2007+ (YCBA)Robin Blake, George Stubbs and the wide creation, animals, people and places in the life of George Stubbs, 1724-1806 , Chatto & Windus, London : Chatto & Windus, 2005, 2005, pp. 215, 278, cl. pl. 11, NJ18.St915 B53 2005 (YCBA)Christie's sale catalogue : Catalogue of the Valuable Collection of Pictures & Drawings and Engravings of the Early English School of Sir Walter Gilbey : 12 March, 14 March and 15 March 1910, Christie's, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, March 12, 14 and 15, 1910, p. 26, Lot 147, Fiche B51, Fiche# 1408 (YCBA)Christie's sale catalogue: Catalogue of a Valuable Collection of Sporting Pictures, Drawings, Engravings and Early English Mezzotints, the property of Walter Gibney : 25 May 1891, Christie's, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, May 25, 1891, p. 22, Lot 348, Fiche B51, Fiche # 0574 (YCBA) Also Avaialble online : Art Sales Cataalogues - Lugt # 50014Christie's sale catalogue: Catalogue of Early English portraits and Ancient and Modern Pictures and Drawings : 15 June 1923, Christie's, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, June 15, 1923, p. 14, Lot 58, Fiche B51, Fiche# 2127 (YCBA)Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 216-217, N590.2 .A83 (YCBA)Malcolm Cormack, Country pursuits: British, American, and French sporting art from the Mellon collections in the Virginia Museum Of Fine Arts, , Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Charlottesville, 2007, p. 11, ND1383 G7 V57 2007 + OVERSIZE (YCBA)Malcolm Cormack, George Stubbs in the collection of Paul Mellon : A memorial exhibition, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1999, p. 39, no. 19, NJ18 St915 G54 1999 (YCBA)Stephen Deuchar, Noble exercise : the sporting ideal in eighteenth-century British art, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1982, pp. 31, 34, 47, no. 77, ND1388 G7 D48+ (YCBA)Martina Droth, Britain in the world : Highlights from the Yale Center for British Art in honor of Amy Meyers, Yale University Press, New Haven, London, 2019, p. 56, N6761 .Y33 2019 (LC) (YCBA)Lindsay Duguid, The Recollected Works, TLS, the Times Literary Supplement, , November 8, 2007, p. 17, Gale Primary Sources : Times Literary Supplement Historical ArchiveJudy Egerton, British Sporting and Animal Paintings 1655-1867 : A Catalogue : The Paul Mellon Collection, , Tate Publishing, London, 1978, pp. 74-75, no. 74, Colour Pl.11, ND1383 G7 B75 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Judy Egerton, George Stubbs, 1724-1806, [exhibition] Tate Gallery. , Tate Publishing, London, 1984, p. 112, no. 77, NJ18 St915 E43 (YCBA) +Judy Egerton, George Stubbs, painter : catalogue raisonne, , Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2007, pp. 50-1, 180-1, no. 40, fig. 4, NJ18 St915 A12 +E44 2007 (YCBA)Nathan Flis, William Hunter and the Anatomy of the Modern Museum, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, p. 362, fig. 198, AM343 .W545 2018 (LC) Oversize (YCBA)Walter Gilbey, Life of George Stubbs, R.A., Vinton, London, 1898, p. 167, NJ18 St915 G55 (HAAS)Michael Glover, Scenes from Afar, The Times (London), Saturday, September 22, 2007, p. 28, Times Digital ArciveCatherine M. Gordon, British paintings Hogarth to Turner, Frederick Warne, London, 1981, p. 62, ND466 .G67 (YCBA)Andrew Graham-Dixon, A history of British art, BBC, London, UK, 1996, pp. 121-2, pl. 45, N6761 G72 1996 (YCBA)Gill Gregory, The Studio, A Psychoanalytic Legacy, Free Publishing Limited, London, p. 47-60, PR6107.R44475 S78 2015 (LC) (YCBA)Mac Griswold, I'll build a stairway to paradise : a life of Bunny Mellon, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2022, p. 330, CT275.M469122 G75 2022Alec Guinness, My name escapes me, the diary of a retiring actor , Hamish Hamilton, London, 1996, p. 171, PN2598 G8 A34 1996 (Bass)Matthew Hargraves, "Yale Center for British Art joins Art UK", ArtUK, 24 June 2019, https://artuk.org/discover/stories/yale-center-for-british-art-joins-art-ukRegina Karl, Screens, genealogies of the excessive screen, a Mellon Sawyer seminar at Yale, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, p. 10, V 2776 (YCBA)Mark Laird, A natural history of English gardening, 1650-1800, The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, New Haven, 2015, pp. 248, 250, pl. 222, SB457.6 .L35 2015 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Dorcas Macclintock, Animals observed, a look at animals in art , Scribner, New York Toronto New York, 1993, p. 33, N7660 M25 1993 (YCBA)Dorcas Macclintock, Queen Charlotte's zebra, 1992, p.5, front cover, V 0143 (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. 4, 114-115, no. 42, ND1314.3 Y36 1998 (YCBA)Joanna Marschner, Enlightened Princesses : Caroline, Augusta, Charlotte, and the Shaping of the Modern World, Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn, 2017, p. 481, 512, fig. 29.11, 29.50, NX543 +.E55 2017 Oversize (YCBA)Melinda Ruth McCurdy, An 18th-Century Star in Stripes, http://huntingtonblogs.org/2018/01/an-18th-century-star-in-stripes/ , Verso Huntington Blogs, January 31, 2018, Available OnlineJohn McDonald, A Feast of Mellon, Sydney Morning Herald, May 9, 1998, p. 14, ProQuest News & Newspapers : Global NewsstreamMr Paul Mellon, Reflections in a silver spoon : a memoir, , W. Morrow, New York, 1992, pp. 281, 291, N5220 M552 1992 (YCBA)Amy Meyers, My Favourite Painting: Amy Meyers, , Country Life, May 13, 2016, https://www.countrylife.co.uk/luxury/art-and-antiques/my-favourite-painting-amy-meyers-86337Sir Oliver Millar, The later Georgian pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen., Phaidon, London, 1969, p. xvii (v. 1), ND466 M55 (YCBA) +Venetia Morrison, The art of George Stubbs, Wellfleet Press, Seacaucus, N.J., 1989, pp. 138-9, NJ18 St915 M67 1989+ (YCBA)J. B. Myers, Other, Artforum International, Vol. 21, March 1983, p. 44-49, N1 A814 OVERSIZE (HAAS)National Gallery of Art, Painting in Georgian England from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1970, p. 6, no. 16, ND488 P25 (YCBA)Robert Michael Neuman, Baroque and Rococo art and architecture, Pearson, Boston, 2013, p. 401, N6415.B3 N48 2013 (YCBA)Painting in England 1700-1850 : collection of Mr. & Mrs. Paul Mellon : Exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, , , Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, 1963, p. 166 (v. 1), no. 315, pl. 164, ND466 V57 v.1-2 (YCBA)Painting 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. 75 (v. 1), no. 267, pl. 53, N5220.M45 R69 1964 (YCBA)Constance-Anne Parker, Mr. Stubbs, the Horse Painter, J. A. Allen, London, 1971, p. 88, NJ18 St915 +P37 Oversize (YCBA)Paul Mellon's legacy : a passion for British art : April 18-July 29, 2007, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Conn., 2007, back cover, V 1735 (YCBA)Paul Mellon's Legacy : a passion for British art [large print labels], , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2007, v.1, no. 23, N5220 M552 P381 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Thomas Pennant, History of quadrupeds [electronic resource]..., v. 1, B. White, London, p. 14, QL737.U62 P58 2018 (YCBA)Christopher Plumb, The Georgian menagerie : exotic animals in eighteenth-century London, I.B. Tauris, London, 2015, p. 186, fig. 8, QL73.G72 L667 2015Christopher Plumb, Zebra, Reaktion Books, London, UK, p. 69. 131-133, QL737.U62 P58 2018 (LC) (YCBA)Lindsay Rothwell, Paul Mellon's legacy : an American's passion for British art : Sackler Wing of Galleries, 20 October 2007 - 27 January 2008 : an introduction to the exhibition for teachers and students., , Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK, 2007, p. 21, fig. 2, V 2038 (YCBA)Herbert W Rott, George Stubbs, 1724-1806, science into art , Prestel, Munich ; New York, 2012, pp. 180-81, cat. no. 45, NJ18.St915 A1213 2012 + OVERSIZE (YCBA)Society of Artists of Great Britain, A catalogue of the pictures, sculptures, models, drawings, prints, &c. exhibited by the Society of Artists of Great Britain, 1763, p. 8, no. 121, N5055 S6 C3 (RARE BOOKS, YCBA) Also Available online in Eighteeneth Century Colectionc OnlineSotheby's sale catalogue : Catalogue of Valuable Pictures by Old Masters of the Italian and Dutch Schools : 16 May 1928, Sotheby's, London, May 16, 1928, p. 33, Lot 130, Film B12, Reel 90 of 155 (YCBA)Stubbs, an exhibition in honor of Paul Mellon : National Gallery of Art, 4 May-2 June 1985. , National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1985, no. 27, V 0413 (YCBA)Basil Taylor, Stubbs, Phaidon, London, 1975, p. 209, pl. 56, NJ18 St915 T39 1975 (YCBA) +Basil Taylor, Stubbs, Phaidon, London, 1971, p. 209, pl. 56, NJ18 St915 +T39 1971B (YCBA)The afterlives of animals : a museum menagerie, University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, VA, pp. 17-36, QL793 .A38X 2011 (SML)Thorvaldsens Museum, Aftenlandet, motiver og stemninger i dansk landskabsmaleri omkring êar 1800. , Thorvaldsens Museum, Copenhagen, 2011, pp. 173-75, ND1361.5 A47 2011 (YCBA)William Vaughan, British painting, the Golden Age from Hogarth to Turner , Thames and Hudson, London, 1999, p. 169, no. 115, ND466 V28 1999 (YCBA)Malcolm Warner, George Stubbs, his patrons and collectors , Magazine Antiques, vol. 166, no. 6, December 2004, p. 70, pl. XII, V 1629 (YCBA) Available Online (Orbis).Malcolm Warner, Great British paintings from American collections : Holbein to Hockney, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2001, pp. 103-105, no. 33, ND464 W27 2001 (YCBA)Marina Warner, The Analyst: Whether Painting Men or Horses, George Stubbs Knew What Made Them Tick, Connoisseur, v. 215,, March 1985, p. 134, N1 C75 + (YCBA)Giles Waterfield, Mr. Mellon, RA : the magazine for the Friends of the Royal Academy, No. 96, Autumn 2007, p. 71, V 1905 (YCBA)Lawrence Trevelyan Weaver, Painter of pedigree, Thomas Weaver of Shrewsbury, Animal Artist of the Agricultural Revolution, London, p. 303, NJ18.W3733 W43 2017 (LC) (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, pp. 47-48 (v.1), no. 179, pl. 53, ND466 Y35 (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
The zebra in this painting was owned by Queen Charlotte and was the sole survivor of a pair brought back from Southern Africa in 1762 by Sir Thomas Adams, the commanding officer of HMS Terpsichore. Though it wasn’t the first zebra on British shores—Prince Frederick had kept zebras at Kew in the 1740s—it was certainly the most visible. Charlotte’s zebra lived in a paddock near Buckingham House, where it was made available to a public with a thirst for exotic animals, spawning several, sometimes bawdy, tributes to “the Queen’s she-ass.” Beyond satire and public curiosity, the zebra was the subject of great scientific interest, as evidenced by Stubbs’s meticulously painted portrait, which may have been made with the assistance of the anatomists William and John Hunter. Stubbs’s incongruous setting (more forest glade than tended paddock) creates an air of melancholy, suggesting both the wonder and the costs of the Enlightenment. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016