Studies for or after "The third Duke of Richmond with the Charleton Hunt"

Studies for the Third Duke of Richmond with the Charlton Hunt from 1750 is an early work by George Stubbs, predating by sixteen years the publication of his Anatomy of the Horse that transformed his career. The composition documents the duke's great hunt, one of the most famous in England, with the group portrait format placing multiple riders and their horses in a landscape that establishes social occasion and territorial ownership. The work belongs to the tradition of English conversation piece and sporting group portrait that John Wootton had established in the earlier eighteenth century. It shows Stubbs before his anatomical studies fundamentally altered his approach to equine painting, working in a more conventional sporting idiom. The work is held at the Yale Center for British Art and is historically significant as an early marker of the artist's developing career.

The preparatory studies reveal Stubbs's working process, with the composition of multiple figures and horses being developed through careful observation.