'Phillis', a Pointer of Lord Clermont's

Lord Clermont was one of the most fashionable horse-racing men of Georgian England, and his pointer 'Phillis' was commissioned as a straightforward record of a prized working dog — a genre Stubbs helped elevate to artistic respectability. Painted in 1772, the work belongs to a sequence of sporting-dog portraits Stubbs produced for aristocratic clients who valued their hunting animals as highly as their racehorses. The pointer breed was regarded as the pinnacle of hunting-dog refinement, bred for stillness and sensitivity, and Stubbs captures Phillis mid-stance, her body a study in coiled alertness. Temple Newsam, the Leeds country house where the painting now resides, holds an important collection of Georgian sporting art, and Stubbs's works sit comfortably within that tradition. The act of naming the sitter in the title — 'Phillis' rather than simply 'a Pointer' — underscores the degree to which aristocratic dogs were understood as individuals with personalities and bloodlines, not merely functional animals.

Oil on canvas with a subdued landscape ground. Stubbs positions Phillis against an open sky, allowing the dog's white-and-liver coat to read as a clear silhouette. The fur is painted with short directional strokes that follow the lie of the coat, while the broad sky behind is applied in smooth, graduated washes to maximise contrast.