Beschreibung:

GEORGE STUBBS (BRITISH 1724-1806)A KING CHARLES SPANIEL IN A LANDSCAPESigned (lower right)Oil on canvas59.8 x 71cm (23½ x 27¾ in.)Provenance:Arthur Ackermann & Sons, LondonMajor P.G.G.Shuter, C.1950Arthur Ackermann & Sons, LondonLord RootesSale, Sotheby's, London, 23 November 1966, lot 84Sale, Sotheby's, New York, 26 April 1967, lot 52R.A. McAlpineArthur Ackermann & Sons, LondonLewis SchottPrivate CollectionSale, Sotheby's, New York, 31 January, 2019, lot 286 ($40-60,000 unsold)Literature:R. Fountain and A. Graves, Stubbs' Dogs, London 1984, p. 85, cat. no. 9, reproduced fig. 55Dog portraiture began in France at the court of Louis XIV, who commissioned portraits of his favourite hounds from Jean-Baptiste Oudry In England, where the emphasis in hunting was increasingly being placed upon the performance of individual hounds, this was reflected in the paintings of contemporaries John Wootton and Peter Tillemans the former of whom in particular started to produce portraits of dogs in the mid eighteenth century.Though dogs, particularly hounds, had featured in Stubbs's work since the mid-1760, and his skill for rendering the distinctive features of individual hounds in paint had been demonstrated in his paintings of The Charlton Hunt and The Grosvenor Hunt, it was not until the mid-1770s that portraits of single dogs begin to feature with any regularity within his repertoire. A fine example of this new emphasis in Stubbs's work can be seen in the series of seven pictures he painted for John Musters of Colwick Hall, Nottinghamshire, circa 1777. Among this groups are two portraits of Mrs Musters spaniels, both of which are lovingly commissioned portraits of adored family pets. Of all breeds spaniels were those that Stubbs painted most frequently, they appear in no less than ten portraits and twice as part of the composition in the portrait of a horse. The King Charles spaniel in particular - one of many breeds favoured by King Charles II - had been kept as a pet of the rich for many years.