An exciting acquisition: a study by George Stubbs

Last year, The Goodwood Collection made one of its most exciting and important acquisitions in decades, an oil sketch by the famous 18th century horse painter, George Stubbs. Acquired by private sale, the artwork complements the existing sporting scenes by Stubbs in the State Apartments of Goodwood House and highlights the significant link between the artist and the 3rd Duke of Richmond.

The study, an oil sketch on three separate sheets of paper stuck together on panel, depicts the 3rd Duke of Richmond’s younger brother, Lord George Lennox mounted on a bay hunter with a hound in the foreground. Lord George has his back to the viewer and wears the blue livery of the Charlton Hunt; his gilded buttons denote full membership. The Charlton Hunt, which took its name from the nearby village of Charlton, was the oldest fox hunt in England and the reason why the 1st Duke of Richmond first came to Goodwood in the 1680s. In the study, both horse and hound are captured mid-movement, the horse in a gentle trot and the hound leaping forward, hot on the tail of a scent. In the background, foliage and trees are hinted at by shadowy forms.

The sketch is a preparatory study for a larger painting the 3rd Duke commissioned from Stubbs in 1759, entitled The Charlton Hunt. This was the first of three sporting scenes Stubbs painted for the Duke whilst staying at Goodwood for a period of nine months in c.1759-60. Together with Racehorses Exercising at Goodwood and Shooting at Goodwood, The Charlton Hunt would go on to launch Stubbs’s career. Like his father the 2nd Duke, who had helped establish Canaletto in England, the 3rd Duke was an important artistic patron. It is easy to see why the 3rd Duke gave the commissions to Stubbs, whose curiosity about the anatomy of horses complemented the Duke’s own interest in science and the natural world. The Duke would later allow Stubbs to paint a portrait of the first male moose to be brought to England, which was kept in the grounds of Goodwood. The Duke would also go on to purchase a painting of a lioness and a lion, an allusion to his father’s menagerie at Goodwood which had housed exotic creatures, including lions. The three large sporting scenes the Duke first acquired hung in the Banqueting Hall of the Jacobean part of Goodwood House, where members of the Charlton Hunt would dine after a day’s hunting.

For The Charlton Hunt, Stubbs was tasked with capturing the hunt in action. The scene depicted the Duke and Lord George on horseback, surrounded by huntsmen and hounds, with a full cry occurring in the background. Its purpose was to celebrate the revival of the Charlton Hunt by the 3rd Duke in 1757. To ensure his composition was a success, Stubbs made several preparatory oil sketches and pencil drawings. The artwork recently acquired is one such sketch. Other studies for the painting exist of individual fox hounds and a grey hunter with a hunt servant adjusting the saddle in other collections. These preparatory sketches reveal much about the method Stubbs employed in his earlier career whilst at Goodwood. They were intended as elements that could be moved around a large canvas to fine-tune his composition.

The preparatory study of Lord George is easily identifiable in the larger scene. Lord George appears virtually unaltered, sitting astride his hunter with his back to the viewer. He is positioned towards the centre, near his brother the 3rd Duke who rides a black hunter and gesticulates to him. The hound in the sketch is also discernible, although in the larger scene it is elongated and positioned near the rear of the horse, rather than in front of it. The individuals, horses and hounds in the scene are all portraits, so it is likely that other studies were created but may not have survived.

The study of Lord George is thought to have been given by Stubbs to the 3rd Duke, who in turn gave it to his brother. It then passed by descent through Lord George’s daughter’s family, the Earls Bathurst until 2014. In 2022, it came home to Goodwood after just over 260 years.