.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
拍品專文
This composition, which shows The Marquess of Rockingham's Scrub, with John Singleton up, is a hitherto unrecorded second version of Stubbs's picture, painted in 1762 for the artist’s most important patron, Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham (private collection; see J. Egerton, George Stubbs, Painter, Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven & London, 2007, p. 166, no. 32).
Scrub was foaled in 1751 in the Rockingham stud at Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire. He was got by Blaze, a son of Flying Childers – the first truly great racehorse in the history of the thoroughbred – out of Lucretia, by Partner out of Lucy. Scrub had a successful career at Newmarket, Doncaster and York between 1755 and 1761. Egerton noted that the Rockingham picture probably commemorates his culminating success, winning the 4-mile Great Subscription Plate at York in 1761, when he was ridden by John Singleton, shown here in Rockingham’s colours (op. cit.). The conspicuously fine treatment of the sylvan landscape in the present canvas suggests it was executed in the early 1760s, presumably soon after the prime version. Scrub was also the subject of Stubbs's monumental life-size canvas (private collection; Egerton, op. cit., no. 35), painted for Rockingham in circa 1762, soon after the latter commissioned Whistlejacket (c. 1762; London, National Gallery), arguably the artist's most celebrated picture.
Born in 1715 at Melbourne, near Pocklington, not far from Wentworth, John Singleton is sometimes described as 'the first professional jockey', a phrase reflecting his employment by Lord Rockingham in all major races from the early 1760s until 1780. The Yorkshire jockey was painted again by Stubbs for the remarkable picture of Bay Malton with John Singleton up, also commissioned by Rockingham and sold in these Rooms at the Wentworth sale, London, 8 July 1998, lot 20, for £3,026,500. Singleton retired from Rockingham's employment in 1780, sufficiently well off to enjoy nearly twenty years of leisure; in a portrait by an unknown artist (in the collection of a London club) he is depicted at the age of eighty-three, riding his horse, Merry Bachelor, and coursing with two greyhounds near Sledmere. Singleton lived to an uncommonly great age, dying in 1799 (see J. Fairfax-Blakeborough, Northern Turf History, III, London, 1950, p. 50). The John Singleton who won the first St. Leger in 1776 for Lord Rockingham, on Alabaculia, was his nephew, sometimes known as John Singleton the Younger.
We are grateful to Brian Allen and Alex Kidson for confirming the attribution after first-hand inspection of the work.
Scrub was foaled in 1751 in the Rockingham stud at Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire. He was got by Blaze, a son of Flying Childers – the first truly great racehorse in the history of the thoroughbred – out of Lucretia, by Partner out of Lucy. Scrub had a successful career at Newmarket, Doncaster and York between 1755 and 1761. Egerton noted that the Rockingham picture probably commemorates his culminating success, winning the 4-mile Great Subscription Plate at York in 1761, when he was ridden by John Singleton, shown here in Rockingham’s colours (op. cit.). The conspicuously fine treatment of the sylvan landscape in the present canvas suggests it was executed in the early 1760s, presumably soon after the prime version. Scrub was also the subject of Stubbs's monumental life-size canvas (private collection; Egerton, op. cit., no. 35), painted for Rockingham in circa 1762, soon after the latter commissioned Whistlejacket (c. 1762; London, National Gallery), arguably the artist's most celebrated picture.
Born in 1715 at Melbourne, near Pocklington, not far from Wentworth, John Singleton is sometimes described as 'the first professional jockey', a phrase reflecting his employment by Lord Rockingham in all major races from the early 1760s until 1780. The Yorkshire jockey was painted again by Stubbs for the remarkable picture of Bay Malton with John Singleton up, also commissioned by Rockingham and sold in these Rooms at the Wentworth sale, London, 8 July 1998, lot 20, for £3,026,500. Singleton retired from Rockingham's employment in 1780, sufficiently well off to enjoy nearly twenty years of leisure; in a portrait by an unknown artist (in the collection of a London club) he is depicted at the age of eighty-three, riding his horse, Merry Bachelor, and coursing with two greyhounds near Sledmere. Singleton lived to an uncommonly great age, dying in 1799 (see J. Fairfax-Blakeborough, Northern Turf History, III, London, 1950, p. 50). The John Singleton who won the first St. Leger in 1776 for Lord Rockingham, on Alabaculia, was his nephew, sometimes known as John Singleton the Younger.
We are grateful to Brian Allen and Alex Kidson for confirming the attribution after first-hand inspection of the work.