Horse Attacked by a Lion (Episode C)

Horse Attacked by a Lion (Episode C) from 1768 by George Stubbs is one of a celebrated series depicting the primal confrontation between the lion and the horse—predator attacking prey—that became the most powerful and widely discussed images in his career. The subject was inspired by a classical marble group in the Palazzo dei Conservatori in Rome, which Stubbs is believed to have seen during a brief Italian visit, and he adapted it into a distinctly English register grounded in anatomical naturalism rather than classical idealization. The lion-and-horse series allowed Stubbs to explore the Burkean sublime—nature as terrifying, violent, overwhelming—within the framework of his scientific precision, giving these paintings a quality of authentic animal terror that purely imaginative treatments lacked. The work is held at the Yale Center for British Art.

The dramatic confrontation is rendered with Stubbs's anatomical precision, both animals depicted with scientific accuracy even in this most dramatic and emotional of subjects.