George Stubbs, A.R.A.

Comissioned by the sitter John Henry Fock, 2nd Baron de Robeck (1753-1817);
By descent to his great great grandson Brigadier John Henry Edward Fock, 6th Baron de Robeck (1895-1965), of Gowan Grange, Naas, County Kildare, Ireland;
His sale, Sotheby's London, 7th December 1960, lot 10 (bt. Koetser Gallery £20,000);
Major A. E. Allnatt, sold by his executors, Sotheby's London, 13th December 1972, lot 23 (bt. Roy Miles £130,000);
Private Collection, New York by whom sold Sotheby's New York, 4th June 1987, lot 52 ($2,200,000);
Private Collection, USA, by whom sold Sotheby's London, 8th June 1999, lot 16, (£1,900,000);
Private Collection, from whom purchased by the present owner in March 2005

Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery, George Stubbs, 1951, no. 37;
London, Whitechapel Art Gallery, George Stubbs, 1957, no. 16;
Dublin, Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Paintings from Irish Collections, 1957, no. 148, illustrated pl.XX 

C.A Parker, Mr Stubbs the Horse Painter, 1971, p. 175;
J. Egerton, George Stubbs 1774-1806, 1984, p. 177;
R. Fountain and A. Gates, Stubbs' Dogs, 1984, p. 95, no. 50
J. Egerton, George Stubbs, Painter. Catalogue Raisonné, 2007, pp. 528-529, no. 292 (illustrated)

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a fairly recent lining and strong stretcher. There has been quite recent restoration. The signature has not been touched over in recent years and is perfectly intact under much old varnish, presumably left from a previous state prior to the change of hands in the early sixties. Characteristically delicate minimalist films of paint are always highly vulnerable to restoration, especially in the light washes of the background, but the figure and much of the horse itself are finely preserved, with a little help from strengthening in places where there was slightly open premature craquelure. Some of the deeper browns have been reinforced in the head of the horse and elsewhere for example in the withers, and a few places in the haunches or lower hind quarters. There is a narrow vertical line from a stretcher bar with little retouchings crossing the neck. The figure of Baron de Robeck is beautifully intact virtually throughout, with just a little strengthening to the last curl of the hair. The hound is also finely preserved, and in the central figure a little film of older varnish has been left in places, as it has along some of the immediate foreground where the leaves at the base on the right are rather nicely intact. There are thinner places in the central foreground: under the hooves and in patches at lower left. The small bushes behind the hound are also thin and the trees are fairly widely strengthened both in their trunks and in the foliage. The distant trees also have thinner patches, as has the delicate distant landscape and the banks of the water, with light retouching in many places. The lower sky has quite widespread small pinkish retouchings, as has the sky in the interstices of the branches on the left and around the figures, while higher up in the open sky to the right there is much fine clear intact undisturbed paint. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This magnificent painting, one of Stubbs' most heroic images, was painted in 1791 the year in which the artist's fortunes seemed to have greatly improved since the disappointments of the previous decade. In 1790 he had received the commission to paint a series of famous racehorses to illustrate a history of The Turf. The year 1791 also saw the beginning of his substantial patronage by George Prince of Wales – amongst the pictures painted for the Prince that year was the equestrian portrait of The Prince by the Serpentine (Royal Collection). It was also the year in which Stubbs produced another heroic equestrian portrait, that of Warren Hastings on his Arabian Horse (Private Collection).

The picture shows the colourful Swedish nobleman John, 2^nd Baron de Robeck, whose father had been ennobled in 1750 by Frederick I of Sweden. The young John entered the army in 1769 and became Captain in 1778. It is said that at some stage he shot his colonel in a duel over a beautiful woman and had to flee the country, but it is not clear at what stage this happened. He entered the French army in Captain Schomberg's regiment and went to America with a French army detachment under Comte de Rochambeau. He became A.D.C. to the Duc de Lauzun and was badly wounded at the Battle of Gloucester in 1781.

In 1783 he returned to France and was given an annual pension of 1500 livres for his services. He was also promoted to Major of Cavalry and two years later was made a Knight of the Military Order of Sword of Sweden. On the 9^th March 1789 he married Anne daughter of the Hon Richard Fitz-Patrick, younger son of Richard Fitz-Patrick, Baron Gowran of Gowran, County Kilkenny, and brother of John Fitz-Patrick who became Earl of Upper-Ossory. He was naturalized by Act of Parliament in England on the 13^th July 1789. His only child John was born in 1790 and later served with Sir John Moore in Spain.

The heroic pose chosen for the portrait has its origin in several famous equestrian portraits by earlier Old Masters such as Titian's The Emperor Charles V at Muhlberg, (Prado, Madrid) (fig. 1), Velasquez's Portrait of Count-Duke Olivares (Prado, Madrid) (fig. 2), and Van Dyck's Portrait of Charles I (National Gallery London). However, as well as being a heroic 'imperator' pose the rearing horse action is also a levade, an equestrian haute ecole exercise of which the cosmopolitan Baron de Robeck was no doubt a master. Stubbs himself had an early interest in haute ecole as one of his earliest friend in London was Domencio Angelo, owner of a celebrated riding school in Soho and author of L'Ecole d'Armes – Stubbs's studio sale included a Portrait of a Maneged [sic] Horse and nine studies of 'horses in the maneged [sic] action.'