A Clumber Spaniel

This 1784 portrait of a Clumber Spaniel, now at the Usher Gallery in Lincoln, documents one of England's most aristocratically associated breeds at a critical moment in its development. The Clumber Spaniel was developed in part at Clumber Park, the Nottinghamshire estate of the Duke of Newcastle — one of the grandest sporting estates in England — and the breed was already associated with nobility before it became widely known. Stubbs's choice to paint the dog in a formal portrait mode, with a landscape background and centred composition, affirms the Clumber's status as a dog of distinction rather than a mere working animal. Spaniels of various types appear throughout British sporting painting, but the Clumber's heavy, deliberate build makes it visually distinctive among Stubbs's dog portraits. The Usher Gallery in Lincoln holds the painting as part of its collection of British art, and it remains an important early record of this breed.

Oil on canvas. The Clumber's creamy white coat with lemon-orange ear markings provides Stubbs with a strong tonal contrast to exploit. He renders the dense, silky fur through layered scumbling rather than individual strand painting, capturing the breed's characteristic heavy, plush coat. The broad, heavy head is modelled carefully to suggest the breed's distinctive solid skull.