Guinea Pigs

Dated 1792 and held at Dundee Art Galleries and Museums, "Guinea Pigs" represents Morland turning his animal observation toward the smallest and most domestic of his subjects — the guinea pig, by the 1790s a common household pet in Britain following the animal's introduction from South America two centuries earlier. The choice of guinea pigs as a painterly subject is characteristic of Morland's democratic refusal to respect conventional hierarchies of subject matter: where other animal painters of his generation painted racehorses and hunting dogs for aristocratic clients, Morland was equally willing to observe the humble creatures of cottage and farmyard. The 1792 date places this within his most consistently productive period. Dundee's collection of this work reflects the strong Scottish appetite for Morland's subjects throughout the nineteenth century. The guinea pig's small scale, rounded form, and varied coat patterns presented him with a specific set of pictorial challenges very different from his horse and pig subjects.

On canvas, the guinea pigs are depicted at the intimate close-up scale their small size demands. Morland's brushwork for these small animals is necessarily finer and more deliberate than his broader farmyard animal handling, with careful attention to the varied, patchy colour of guinea pig coats. Background is simplified to keep attention on the animals' specific textures and forms.