Joseph Smyth Esq, Lieutenant of Whittlebury Forest, Northamptonshire, on a dapple grey horse

Joseph Smyth on a Dapple Grey Horse from 1763 by George Stubbs depicts the Lieutenant of Whittlebury Forest in a setting that documents both the sitter's role as royal forest official and his status as a gentleman of the Northamptonshire gentry. The dapple grey horse—a particularly challenging coat to render accurately—demonstrates Stubbs's mastery of equine coloring as well as anatomy. His equine paintings combine the anatomical precision gained from his seven-year dissection project—published as The Anatomy of the Horse in 1766—with compositional elegance informed by classical sculpture, producing a format for the English equestrian portrait that dominated the genre for decades. The Whittlebury Forest setting grounds the portrait in a specific English landscape. The work is held at the Fitzwilliam Museum.

The dapple grey horse provides an opportunity to demonstrate Stubbs's mastery of equine coloring, with the coat's mottled pattern rendered with precise observation.