Monday 27 October 2008

Whistlejacket & Scrub at Leeds Art Gallery. Note 12.

The current exhibition: WHISTLEJACKET & SCRUB: Large as Life, The Great Paintings of Stubbs at Leeds Art Gallery (ending on 9 November) gives us an opportunity to examine two magnificent levade-action paintings by George Stubbs. The exhibition also provides a rare chance to see the painting of Scrub (Halifax Collection) in its newly cleaned and restored condition, and to consider why the Marquess of Rockingham commissioned Stubbs to paint both horses in this haute ecole exercise.

The exhibition is accompanied by a highly informative catalogue edited by Kerry Harker that includes a fascinating account of Scrub's restoration. At the time of the publication of Judy Egerton's Catalogue Raisonne, George Stubbs, Painter, the picture of Scrub was being cleaned. Numerous layers of overpainting have been removed and while the conformation of the horse remains the same, the landscape background is softened and, although thinly painted, has a more natural colour. In her book, Mrs Egerton speculates that during cleaning evidence might come to light that the original size of the painting was probably the same as that of Whistlejacket, (both pictures painted c.1762). In the height of the painting this is proved to be the case; in the width, nearly so. What has also come to light during restoration is that the join of the two unequal-sized vertical strips of canvas used to make each picture lies on opposite sides, over the rump of the horse, avoiding a later appearing seam bisecting the head as each animal looks left or right. A similar ground colour is used in both paintings which, with other evidence, suggests that Rockingham conceived these two pictures as a pair. Although there is some contemporary evidence supporting the view that Whistlejacket was painted before Scrub, it is Mrs Egerton's view that Scrub was painted first. What remains unexplained is why Rockingham rejected the painting of Scrub. The picture was returned to the artist without any apparent ill-feeling arising between Stubbs and the Marquess. After many vicissitudes (including considerable damage), the painting was in the artist's studio sale in 1807 where it was bought by his benefactor and then executor Isabella Saltonstall for £52. 10s. (50 guineas).

Two other questions arise. Why were these pictures painted at all? And why was the levade position chosen? There is supposition, again from contemporary sources, that Whistlejacket was to have carried a portrait of George III, that is until Rockingham had a political difference with the new King. Scrub is also favoured as the Royal charger according to Osiaz Humphry, Stubbs's friend and quasi-biographer. There is no conclusive evidence either way.

Stubbs painted very few pictures of moving horses. The Grosvenor Hunt painted c.1761/62 is one such painting. This large picture (59 x 95 inches) is all action with, in the background, the presumed hunt member Mr Bell Lloyd putting his horse (too close) to jump, cat-like, a five-bar gate. The position is that of Scrub and Whistlejacket with the forelegs tucked in to avoid their rapping the top bar of the gate. Perhaps there is a little more 'coiled spring' in the hunter's hindquarters than could be sustained for a few seconds in a well-executed levade in a riding school. This painting shows Stubbs's undoubted ability, slightly stiff as it may appear to today's observer, to paint a horse in movement. What is not known is why Rockingham wished that two of his only moderately successful racehorses, then at stud, should be portrayed in this unexpected way.

Rockingham at Wentworth was a neighbour of the Duke of Portland at Welbeck (see Note 11), and must have been familiar (as probably was Stubbs) with the life-sized pictures of horses at Welbeck Abbey. Painted by an unknown British artist, and probably copied from earlier European examples, these pictures illustrated a number of equine exercise positions, including the levade. It seems perfectly possible that they gave Rockingham the idea for paintings of his own horses on a similar grand scale, with or without an intended rider.

Let me now speculate! In the past and today it is often the practice of an artist to be painting more than one picture at a time, flitting from one to another as inspiration directs him. Could not Rockingham have asked Stubbs to paint a pair of Welbeck-style horse portraits? Two canvases of the same proportions were prepared, their surfaces sized with the same yellow grounding. Both paintings progressed well, and then at some point the Marquess was bowled over by the vitality of the image of Whistlejacket, far superior to the albeit beautifully painted Scrub. He decides then and there that Stubbs should complete only the former. "Forget Scrub", he says. Blow the King and every other theory! A simplistic answer perhaps, but one that seems to fit many of the now substantiated facts.

Footnote. Among the other excellent essays in the catalogue, there is an invaluable survey of a number of racing terms: "distancing", "weight for age", "heat racing", etc., by today's great authority on racing history and collaborater in many aspects of this exhibition, David Oldrey.