Kimbell Acquires Masterpiece by George Stubbs

“With a mandate to collect only works of major historical and aesthetic importance, the Kimbell is the natural home for this masterpiece,” said Eric Lee, director of the Kimbell Art Museum. “I am sure that it will become an audience favorite. Visitors to the museum will relish the multidimensional depiction of mares and foals—alive with subtle drama, imbued with tenderness, and fascinating in its expression of the individual personalities of each horse.”

ABOUT THE PAINTING

In this picture, which is slightly more than six feet long by three feet tall, a mature bay mare commands the center of a group of two other mares and three foals, who nuzzle close to their mothers. The composition is set within a springtime landscape at what is probably the viscount’s family estate of Lydiard Tregoze, Wiltshire, now Borough of Swindon, with verdant green parkland, cloudy sky, and a broad, dark gray stretch of water providing spatial interest beyond the long, slender legs of the horses.

Highly naturalistic, the horses are lifelike in their anatomical forms and poses. While the overall mood is tranquil and domestic as the horses gently commune with each other, the cloudy sky and the wide, sparkling eyes of the mares add an element of drama and nobility to the composition.

Stubbs was then, and is today, recognized for his unrivaled understanding of equine anatomy and unsurpassed ability to record not only the appearance of individual animals but also their temperaments. His genius in understanding the horse arose from anatomical study and from his apparent empathy for the character of each horse and his ability to express its exquisite beauty. His skill extended to landscapes that enhanced the mood, composition, and legibility of the animal subjects.

ABOUT THE PATRON

The titular 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke, Frederick St. John (1732–1787), was one of Stubbs's most important early patrons. The Kimbell painting seems to be the earliest commission of this virtually unprecedented subject; it is probably the work that Stubbs exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1762. Soon, other members of Bolingbroke’s circle of aristocratic horse enthusiasts and fellow statesmen of the Whig political party commissioned similar compositions on the theme of brood mares and their offspring, many doubtless depicting the patrons’ own horses.

Stubbs’s equestrian paintings—along with his portrayals of rural life and of other animals—were an especially delightful and sophisticated expression of the pastimes of the British nobility and landed gentry. Patrons could hang such works alongside fashionable portraits and Old Master paintings in their town or country houses, where vast fields, parklands, stables, and studs reflected their love of hunting and sporting life.

HISTORY OF THE WORK

Mares and Foals Belonging to the 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke remained in the family collection at Lydiard Tregoze until it was sold at auction in 1943 and shortly thereafter entered the collection of Mrs. John Arthur Dewar, of the whisky distillery family, who also owned Henry Raeburn’s Allen Brothers (Portrait of James and John Lee Allen), which entered the Kimbell collection in 2002. At the museum, Mares and Foals Belonging to the 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke also joins Stubbs’s Lord Grosvenor's Arabian Stallion with a Groom, a work acquired by the Kimbell in 1981. The Kimbell acquired Mares and Foals Belonging to the 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke from a private collection through London-based art dealers Simon C. Dickinson Ltd. 

ACQUIRED IN MEMORY OF BEN J. FORTSON (1932–2024)

The Kimbell Art Foundation acquired Mares and Foals Belonging to the 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke in memory of Ben J. Fortson (1932–2024), who passed away in May 2024 and whose leadership was instrumental in the Kimbell’s growth. Mr. Fortson served on the Board of Directors of the Kimbell Art Foundation from 1964 until his death and was the Foundation’s longtime Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. He will be forever remembered for stewarding the Kimbell’s investments and finances and for being the driving force behind the building of the museum’s Renzo Piano Pavilion, which opened in 2013 and houses the museum’s temporary exhibitions and permanent collections of Asian, African, and ancient American art. 

ABOUT STUBBS

The protracted and exacting early training of George Stubbs (1724–1806) laid the groundwork for his extraordinarily sensitive and refined paintings, drawings, and prints. Born in Liverpool, Stubbs was adept at drawing from a young age. Largely self-taught, he painted portraits, moving to York in 1745. He studied and taught anatomy, drawing, and perspective and traveled to Rome in the spring of 1754 before returning to Liverpool for a few years. 

Working in the village of Horkstow, North Lincolnshire, from 1756 to 1758, he embarked on an intensive period studying the physical structure and workings of the horse, dissecting specimens, assisted by his common-law wife, Mary Spenser, and making elegant and precisely detailed drawings that were the basis for his seminal publication on the horse’s anatomy, a volume of etchings that appeared in 1766. 

When he moved to London in late 1758 or early 1759, these extraordinary drawings were not only an entrée to patronage from horse-loving aristocrats but also the crucible for Stubbs’s ambitions to explore a range of new pictorial subjects and techniques. These would include his portraits of individual racehorses, as well as his series of mares and foals; paintings of domestic dogs—both those bred for sport and as pets; and depictions of wild, exotic animals, sometimes in combat. His paintings of men and women include portraits, conversation pieces, scenes of rural life, and even mythological subjects. 

An innovative master printmaker, Stubbs produced the etchings for The Anatomy of the Horse himself in order to achieve the quality he demanded. He experimented with enamel painting and collaborated with Josiah Wedgwood to pioneer new and more permanent techniques.

Stubbs’s naturalistic approach to art is characterized by an exquisite grace and harmonious balance. This seemingly intuitive approach to classicizing compositions may be associated with his experience viewing antiquities in Rome, his empirical processes, and his exposure to the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment.