Antinoüs

A named horse beneath a tree

George Stubbs's Antinoüs, a chestnut racehorse, in a landscape is a signed, undated oil on canvas, 61 by 70.2 centimetres. Christie's records the inscriptions ‘Geo: Stubbs pinxit’ and ‘Antinous’ at lower right, the name below the horse. It belongs among Stubbs's named horse portraits. ^[1]

Antinoüs stands facing left, his body extending across the lower half of a nearly square landscape. A substantial tree occupies the left edge; its branches spread overhead while the horse's back meets a broad opening of pale sky. Four feet touch the ground. No rider, groom, saddle or bridle interrupts the outline. The scene gives the animal an unusually uninterrupted presence: we can follow him from the tips of the ears to the blunt end of the tail, then return along the legs and belly. ^[2]

The horse is neither small in the landscape nor pressed against the frame. There is room above his ears and behind his hindquarters, and a broad strip of ground below his hooves. His head stops just short of the tree. That narrow interval is important: the trunk and muzzle remain separate, keeping the horse readable as a complete body rather than allowing the foreground forms to merge. The dark chestnut is set against lighter ground around the head and shoulders, then against a lower band of green beneath the belly. ^[2]

Looking at the standing body

The most decisive contour runs from the ears down the neck, across the back and over the rounded hindquarter. It is not a straight horizontal. A shallow dip behind the shoulder and a rise towards the rump give it an individual rhythm. Below, the line of the belly bends upwards towards the hind legs. These two differently shaped boundaries enclose the long middle of the animal. Stubbs makes that length clear without requiring a racing stride or an exaggerated turn towards the viewer. ^[2]

Light separates several forms within this silhouette. The shoulder has a warm illuminated edge beside a darker central passage; another bright area falls across the ribcage, and the curve of the hindquarter receives a broader glow. Along the upper body, the darker back and mane make a continuous counterweight. The effect depends on changes within the brown rather than on a uniformly bright coat. In reproduction, these changes remain readable at a distance even when individual surface marks become harder to distinguish. ^[2]

His head inclines downwards from upright ears. The near eye appears as a small dark point, and a thin line describes the mouth above the rounded muzzle. The neck narrows markedly towards the head. Unlike the broad body, this part of the figure is almost entirely surrounded by pale background, so its smaller changes of direction are especially distinct. The ears rise into empty space; the nose projects towards the trunk; the lower jaw and throat turn back towards the chest. These visible angles carry the description without requiring a claim about the horse's feelings. ^[2]

The forelegs descend close together, with the farther leg showing beside the nearer one. Their hooves are slightly separated rather than becoming a single dark base. The hind legs have a wider offset: one runs further forward under the body, while the other stands behind it. Bright white markings at the hind feet draw attention to this difference. They also break the surrounding dark ground into smaller intervals. There is no need to turn this ordinary distribution of weight into a verdict on soundness, training or fatigue. ^[2]

The short tail has a clearly defined lower edge and hangs free of the legs. Its compact form leaves the outline of the hindquarter exposed. It contributes to the picture's particular silhouette, but the painting supplies no explanation for its length. Likewise, the absence of tack is a fact of the image, not proof that the horse had never worn it. Nothing visible establishes that a mark around the muzzle was an injury caused by equipment. A portrait can be precise about appearances without preserving the causes of every appearance. ^[2]

The tree, ground and distance

The tree is the horse's largest neighbour. Its broad trunk rises close to the left border, interrupted by irregular pale patches and darker hollows. A second, slimmer vertical appears further back, while strong branches spread to the right above the animal. Smaller leaves soften their edges. At ground level, separate clusters of low plants extend out from the roots. The difference between the heavy trunk and these much smaller forms makes the foreground feel close, but neither the tree nor the plants need a botanical name to fulfil that role. ^[2]

The horse's long axis crosses the tree's upward growth. One directs the eye sideways, the other carries it towards the top of the canvas. Their meeting is deliberately incomplete: the horse does not cover the trunk, and the branches remain above his back. Between them lies an open, lighter wedge of distance. That space prevents the left side from becoming a solid dark enclosure and lets the head remain distinct even though it points towards the picture's heaviest mass. ^[2]

Around the feet, the ground is dark and unevenly lit. Beyond it, a greener band rises gently behind the animal. Groups of trees appear across the middle distance, with a more open interval under the belly and smaller, paler forms towards the right. Low hills close the view. They stay below the back for much of its length, allowing sky rather than vegetation to define the upper contour. Foreground plants, middle-distance trees and distant slopes consequently offer three different scales against which to read the horse. ^[2]

The sky occupies a large portion of the painting, but it does not become a separate spectacle. Thin blue-grey passages cross a warmer pale field. Their long, soft shapes repeat the general sideways movement of the composition without competing with the sharper animal outline. Above the head, scattered leaves and a projecting branch give way to uninterrupted light. Behind the rump, the sky remains open. The painting balances a densely occupied left edge with a much less obstructed right side. ^[2]

This landscape contains no sign that securely names a particular estate or racecourse. Its contribution is spatial and pictorial: it places the horse on ground, sets different distances around him and allows his profile to remain legible. That is enough to distinguish this image within Stubbs's animal painting. A faithful description can acknowledge the body and setting without converting them into an imagined episode of waiting, unhappiness or recovery after a race. ^[2]

Antinoüs in the pedigree

The 1803 General Stud Book identifies Antinous as a chestnut colt foaled in 1758, by Blank. He appears beneath the Partner mare described as sister to the Widdrington Mare, with the Duke of Grafton's name bracketed beside the entry. His dam was bred by Mr Crofts and foaled in 1739. The pedigree continues through her mother, by Bloody Buttocks: that phrase describes the preceding generation, not the sire of the Partner mare herself. ^[16]

The layout matters. Several mares by Partner share this printed page, so the individual heading, date, relationship and ownership bracket prevent one family's details from slipping into another. The abbreviated chestnut-colt entry supplies something appearance alone cannot: a place in a recorded genealogy. A later entry for Wildman's Euston gives 1769, Antinous as sire and a dam by Brilliant, extending the record into the next generation. ^[16]

Racing, defeat and the stud

Pick's Turf Register records Antinous winning the King's Plate at Ipswich in July 1762 over three heats, each two and a quarter miles; Newmarket's 1,200-guinea stakes in April 1763; and £241 10s at York in August 1765, ridden by William Pilkington. The October 1767 match against Bodkin was his last race. ^[17]

Pick names King Herod, Exotic and Otho among his conquerors; their own entries confirm the encounters. King Herod's matches were in October 1764 and May 1765. This corrects the later sale essay's ‘Exeter’ and ‘Otto’. ^{[1] [17]} The proper Otho also has his own Stubbs portrait, Otho with John Larkin Up. ^[18] The connection is between documented horses, not evidence that either painting depicts their meeting. ^[17]

At stud, Pick places Antinous with Pilkington at Fakenham near Thetford, initially at five guineas plus five shillings, raised to ten guineas plus five shillings in 1774. Christie's gives 1775 instead. ^{[1] [17]} His listed offspring include Euston and Leapfrog. Thus the stationary animal belonged to both racing and breeding history; he was a stallion, not a gelding. ^[17]

The sale catalogue summarises eight wins from twelve races, two forfeits and nearly £5,000 earned for Grafton. Those totals describe the horse's career, not an event shown here. ^[1]

Stonehewer and the ownership of the picture

Richard Stonehewer belonged to Grafton's personal as well as professional circle. William Prideaux Courtney's Dictionary of National Biography article describes him as the Duke's Cambridge tutor, later his private secretary and lifelong confidential friend. The relationship therefore preceded official service and survived changes of office. Courtney also records Reynolds painting Stonehewer for Grafton in 1775: the secretary was himself a subject of portraiture within the Duke's collection. ^[19]

Stonehewer's interests extended into literature. He knew Thomas Gray, and manuscripts passed to him through Gray's friend and literary executor William Mason. Stonehewer subsequently bequeathed Gray's commonplace books and autograph poems to Pembroke College, Cambridge. This helps place the presumed recipient of the horse picture within a world of scholarship, friendship and collecting. It does not establish that Antinoüs was painted as a literary allusion, or that Stonehewer chose the horse's name. His documented closeness to Grafton makes a personal exchange intelligible while leaving its precise occasion open. ^[19]

Christie's begins the provenance with a presumed commission by, or gift to, Stonehewer. It then traces inheritance to his sister Penelope, who died in 1821, wife of the Reverend Sir Richard Nelson Rycroft, and family descent to the consignor. Its essay corrects a reverse label suggesting Stonehewer owned Antinoüs: the horse belonged to Grafton. ^[1]

Another Antinoüs, with Pilkington mounted

Grafton's patronage produced more than one image of this horse and his family. A later specialist account identifies two pictures exhibited in 1764: a mounted Antinoüs, with landscape by George Barret, and Mares and Foals by a stream, whose central bay mare carries the inscription ‘Antinoüs Dam’. It associates them with numbers 43 and 42 respectively in Judy Egerton's catalogue. The background collaboration belongs to the mounted work; it gives no reason to assign Barret the tree or landscape in the smaller standing portrait. ^[20]

That account also places a separate Grafton commission, the chestnut horse Patch, at Goodwood in 1759. Antinoüs therefore sits within a continuing relationship between Stubbs and the Duke rather than marking their first recorded contact. The dam group adds a further distinction: an image concerned with a mare and her offspring could preserve family identity through an inscription as well as through individual appearance. The much larger Mares and Foals in an Extensive Landscape has a separate history again. ^[20]

Gilbey's 1898 exhibition appendix transcribes an Antinous belonging to Grafton as no. 115 under the 1764 Society of Artists exhibition. The entry alone gives no dimensions or rider description. More revealing is his reproduction of the 1885 Vokins loan catalogue: no. 32 is Antinous and Jockey, with Pilkington identified as trainer, a river in the distance and a landscape attributed to G. Barrett. The Duke of Grafton lent it. Those details distinguish a mounted composition from the unaccompanied horse beneath the tree. ^[21] The larger mounted canvas measures 40 by 50 inches. ^[1]

The same 1885 list identifies a bay mare in another group as Antinous's dam. These historical exhibition notices show that horse, rider and parentage remained useful ways of distinguishing Stubbs pictures. They should not be collapsed into one travelling canvas. In particular, the small standing portrait cannot acquire the mounted picture's 1764 exhibition or 1885 lender simply because both are portraits of Antinoüs. Nor does a historical collection designation establish where either work is today. ^[21]

Antinoüs's offspring also entered Stubbs's work. Sotheby's catalogued Euston, a dappled grey with jockey, as a signed 1774 oil on panel measuring 86.5 by 99 centimetres. Its essay identifies the horse as Grafton-bred, foaled in 1769 by Antinous, and owned by William Wildman. It further records the painting's exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1775. This is a distinct animal, support, size and exhibition history. ^[22]

The relationship is nevertheless useful: a named sire in one portrait leads to a named son in another. Euston's grey coat should not be mistaken for a different version of the chestnut Antinoüs. Nor should Wildman's ownership of the son migrate to the father. Such connections make Stubbs's horse portraits a particularly precise form of historical record, provided each painting retains its own subject. They also explain why identifying a horse by colour alone is inadequate when inscriptions and pedigrees allow a closer distinction. ^[22]

The surviving public record

Christie's London lot 19, 8 December 2009, realised £361,250 against a £200,000–£300,000 estimate. Buyer, execution year and present whereabouts remain unreported. ^[1]

What the image does preserve is a complete, deliberate presentation of a single horse: the near profile, the separate placement of the feet, the short tail, the tree beside the muzzle and the light surrounding the upper outline. Beside Whistlejacket, its setting and grounded pose offer a markedly different viewing experience. Antinoüs's quiet placement gives the eye time to travel around the body and through the surrounding land. The wider George Stubbs guide follows the artist's other subjects; here the attention remains with this horse and this landscape. ^[2]