Stubbs: Portrait of a Horse at the National Gallery

From 12 March to 31 May 2026, the National Gallery presents a new exhibition devoted to George Stubbs (1724–1806).

Source: National Gallery · Image: George Stubbs, ‘Scrub, a bay horse belonging to the Marquess of Rockingham’, about 1762. Private Collection

The only life-size horse portrait by Stubbs still in a private collection, and only once before seen on public display, ‘Scrub, a bay horse belonging to the Marquess of Rockingham’ (about 1762) will be joined in the exhibition by other paintings and works on paper by Stubbs.

Visitors will also be able to draw comparisons with the artist’s masterpiece Whistlejacket (about 1762), in the National Gallery’s collection, which will be on display nearby in Room 34. The two equine portraits were painted in the same year for the Marquess of Rockingham (1730–82), who owned both of these former racehorses. He would subsequently decide not to purchase the painting of Scrub.

These two paintings are two of the first large as life portraits of horses depicted without a human presence in British art and show how in the second half of the 18th-century Stubbs would change equine painting for future generations through his keen observation and anatomical studies. The exhibition will focus on the creation of Scrub, and will contextualise the commission through two significant projects undertaken by the artist where the horse is the subject.