- Artist
- George Stubbs 1724–1806
- Medium
- Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 1016 × 1270 mm
frame: 1180 × 1440 × 115 mm - Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased with assistance from the Friends of the Tate Gallery 1973
- Reference
- T01705
Summary
It was Stubbs's practice to paint the foreground animals first, and the background and sky later, painting up to and often over the outline of the figures. His increasingly sophisticated style is apparent if one compares this picture to his earlier depictions of hounds, such as the 1762 Foxhounds in a Landscape (collection Lady Juliet de Chair), in which he posed five dogs in a frieze-like arrangement. Whereas the dogs in the 1762 portrait, equally well-painted, are formally posed, this pair are engaged in almost human interaction.
Further reading:
Judy Egerton, George Stubbs 1724-1806, exhibition
catalogue, Tate Gallery 1984, reprinted 1996, p.143, reproduced in colour
Terry Riggs
December 1997
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Catalogue entry
George Stubbs 1724–1806
T01705 A Couple of Foxhounds 1792
Inscribed ‘Geo:Stubbs pinx it 1792’ b.r.
Canvas, 40 x 50¼ (101.5 x 127.5).
Purchased from Spink & Son Ltd (Grant-in-Aid) with assistance from the Friends of the Tate Gallery and a special government grant 1973.
Coll: ...; ?taken to Australia by a member of the Vyner family; by descent; sold to an Australian dealer, by whom sold T00972 to a London dealer, by whom sold 1972 to Spink’s.
Exh: English Painting, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, Spink & Son Ltd, November–December 1972 (18, repr. in colour, as ‘A couple of foxhounds’); Fanfare for Europe: The British Art Market 1973, Christie’s, January 1973 (30).
Lit: Basil Taylor, ‘A Stubbs Discovery’ in Octagon, IX, No.4, Winter 1972, p.5, repr. in colour; The Friends of the Tate Gallery Annual Report 1972–1973, 1973, p.11, repr.
The early history of this picture has not been traced nor has it been possible to trace its original owner or the names of the dogs. There was a picture in the sale of Stubbs’ effects in 1807 (Peter Coxe at 24 Somerset Street, 26–27 May 1807, 1st day, lot 59) described as ‘Portrait of Two Hounds belonging to the late Duke of Richmond, in a small landscape, painted from Nature, at his Grace’s seat at Goodwood, in 1791’, but it is probable though not altogether certain that the reference to a ‘small landscape’ means that the picture itself was small.
The picture is however very close in style and character to the painting of the hound Ringwood, painted for Charles Pelham later 1st Baron Yarborough and also signed and dated 1792 (see Basil Taylor, Stubbs, 1971, p.214, repr. pl.116 in colour). Stubbs also portrayed hounds in a group of mezzotints of 1788 (see Taylor, 1971, p.213,repr. pls.110–12).
The actual type of hound portrayed is uncertain. Though normally referred to as foxhounds, as in the other examples mentioned above, they may be hare-hounds, that is harriers. (The compiler is indebted to Mr Basil Taylor for information and advice in preparing this entry.)
Published in The Tate Gallery Report 1972–1974, London 1975.