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Creator:
George Stubbs, 1724–1806
Title:

Newmarket Heath, with the King's stables rubbing house at the finish of the Beacon Course

Former Title(s):

Newmarket Heath, with a Rubbing-down House [2001, The Paul Mellon Bequest: Treasures of a Lifetime, exhibition catalogue]

Rubbing-down House; Newmarket

Views of the Rubbing Houses at Newmarket

Date:
ca. 1765
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
12 x 16 inches (30.5 x 40.6 cm), Frame: 16 × 20 1/4 × 2 1/4 inches (40.6 × 51.4 × 5.7 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B2001.2.60
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Subject Terms:
architectural subject | building | field | horse barns | house | landscape | race (event) | racecourse | rural | sky | sports | storage | storeroom | studies (visual works)
Associated Places:
England | Europe | Newmarket | Suffolk | United Kingdom
Access:
Not on view
Note: To make an appointment to see this work, please contact the Paintings and Sculpture department at ycba.paintings@yale.edu. Please visit the Paintings and Sculpture collections page on our website for more details.
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:21167
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This small study of the rubbing house at Newmarket was made in preparation for several paintings of individual racehorses represented at the famous racecourse, including Turf, with Jockey Up, at Newmarket (shown nearby). These buildings were used to saddle horses and then groom them after exercises or races. It is a testament to Stubbs’s penetrating vision that the small brick building was scrutinized with the same care and precision as a horse or jockey. It was probably painted in his studio from graphite or chalk sketches made at Newmarket and was later owned by the sporting artist James Ward, whose work is exhibited elsewhere on this floor.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2022


This small study of the rubbing house at Newmarket was made in preparation for several paintings of individual racehorses represented at the famous racecourse, including Turf, with Jockey Up (shown nearby). These buildings were used to saddle horses and then groom them after exercises or races. It is a testament to Stubbs’s penetrating vision that the small brick building was scrutinized with the same care and precision as a horse or jockey. It was probably painted in his studio from graphite or chalk sketches made at Newmarket and was later owned by the sporting artist James Ward, whose work is exhibited elsewhere on this floor.

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016
Rubbing-down houses were storerooms for grooming equipment, at which stable-lads would rub horses down with cloths and straw after races or exercises. The present work is one of a pair of studies of the same rubbing-down house from different viewpoints; the other is now in the Tate Collection, London. Stubbs seems to have made them in preparation for the backgrounds to portraits of the famous horse Gimcrack, although he clearly used them again in other racehorse portraits with a Newmarket setting. “Not only are they delightful in themselves, extremely rare as examples of the painter and a clue to his method of working,” Paul Mellon’s friend and art adviser Basil Taylor wrote to him in a letter of 2 January 1961, “but I know no English landscapes quite like them in their naturalism before the lifetime of Constable.”

Malcolm Warner

Warner, Malcolm and John Baskett. The Paul Mellon Bequest : treasures of a lifetime. New Haven : Yale Center for British Art, 2001, p. 78

George Stubbs at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015-03-23 - 2015-11-13) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Paul Mellon - A Cambridge Tribute (The Fitzwilliam Museum, 2007-06-12 - 2007-09-23) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

The Paul Mellon Bequest : Treasures of a Lifetime (Yale Center for British Art, 2001-02-17 - 2001-04-29) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

George Stubbs in the Collection of Paul Mellon: a Memorial Exhibition (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2000-02-14 - 2000-05-15) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

George Stubbs in the Collection of Paul Mellon: a Memorial Exhibition (Yale Center for British Art, 1999-04-30 - 1999-09-05) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Stubbs - An Exhibition in Honor of Paul Mellon (National Gallery of Art, 1985-04-11 - 1985-05-04) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

George Stubbs (1724-1806) Tate Gallery (Yale Center for British Art, 1985-02-13 - 1985-04-07) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

George Stubbs (1724-1806) Tate Gallery (Tate Britain, 1984-10-17 - 1985-01-06) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Painting in England 1700-1850 - From The Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon (Yale University Art Gallery, 1965-04-15 - 1965-06-20) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Sir Geoffrey Agnew, Yale's 1700 Mellon Pictures, The Times (London), , April 28, 1977, p. 9, Times Digital Archive [ORBIS]

Catalogue : 25 October 1957, Christie's, London, October 25, 1957, p. 25, lot 156, Fiche B51 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Judy Egerton, British Sporting and Animal Paintings 1655-1867 : A Catalogue : The Paul Mellon Collection, , Tate Publishing, London, 1978, pp. 77-78, no. 76, pl. 29, ND1383 G7 B75 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Judy Egerton, George Stubbs, 1724-1806, [exhibition] Tate Gallery. , Tate Publishing, London, 1984, pp. 82-3, 84, no. 53, NJ18 St915 E43 (YCBA) + [YCBA]

Elizabeth Einberg, The age of Hogarth, British painters born 1675-1709 , vol. 2, Tate Gallery, London, 1988, p. 162, ND466 T38 1988 + OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Catherine M. Gordon, British paintings Hogarth to Turner, Frederick Warne, London, 1981, p. 62, ND466 G67 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Mac Griswold, I'll build a stairway to paradise : a life of Bunny Mellon, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2022, after p. 272, CT275.M469122 G75 2022 [ORBIS]

Painting in England 1700-1850 : collection of Mr. & Mrs. Paul Mellon : Exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, , 1,2, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, 1963, p. 167 (v.1), no. 318, pl. 176, ND466 V57 v.1-2 (YCBA) [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. 42 (v.1), No. 153, pl. 55, ND466 R68 1964/65 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Graham Reynolds, Posing on Four Legs, TLS, the Times Literary Supplement, Issue No. 4072, April 17, 1981, p. 445, Film S748 (SML) Also Available OnLine in TLS Historical Archive (ORBIS) [ORBIS]

Duncan Robinson, Paul Mellon: a Cambridge tribute, , The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge [England], 2007, pp. 32-3, 49, N5220 M552 P36 2007 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Roberta Smith, Horses, Hounds and Men, at Work and at Play, New York Times, August 7, 2015, p. C22, Available online : Proquest .com/nytimes [ORBIS]

Basil Taylor, Stubbs, Phaidon, London, 1975, pp. 42, 208, pl. 33, NJ18 St915 T39 1975 (YCBA) + [YCBA]

Basil Taylor, Stubbs, Phaidon, London, 1971, pp. 42, 208, pl. 33, NJ18 St915 +T39 1971B (YCBA) [YCBA]

Malcolm Warner, The Paul Mellon Bequest : treasures of a lifetime, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2001, p. 78, N5247 M385 P28 2001 (YCBA) [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. 45 (v.1), no. 171, pl. 55, ND466 Y35 (YCBA) [YCBA]


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