The Moose

Stubbs's 1770 painting of a moose, held at the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow, is one of the most scientifically significant works in his entire output. A moose from North America had been presented to the Duke of Richmond — the same patron for whom Stubbs painted hunting scenes — and Stubbs was granted access to study and paint the animal, almost certainly the first extended oil study of a moose by a European artist. The painting fed directly into his ambitious comparative anatomy project, as he needed baseline studies of exotic species before he could execute the engraved comparative plates. John Hunter, the surgeon who later acquired many of Stubbs's animal studies, would have valued the moose painting both as art and as anatomical record. The work sits at the intersection of Georgian natural history illustration, scientific inquiry, and painting, making it an important document of Enlightenment Britain's effort to catalogue the natural world.

Oil on canvas. Stubbs presents the moose in near-profile, the format most useful for anatomical documentation. The animal's large, pendulous muzzle — a diagnostic feature of the species — is given prominent treatment. The coat's coarse, shaggy texture is rendered with dry, broken strokes that differ visibly from the smooth treatment of the horses and big cats.