John Gascoigne (d. 1812) with a Bay Horse

John Gascoigne with a Bay Horse from 1791 by George Stubbs is a late equestrian portrait combining human and equine subjects. These horse-and-rider compositions were Stubbs's most commercially important format throughout his career. Stubbs's oil technique was grounded in exhaustive anatomical study—he spent eighteen months dissecting horses at a Lincolnshire farmhouse before painting the plates for his Anatomy of the Horse (1766)—producing an exactitude of musculature and bone structure...

The rider and horse are rendered with Stubbs's precise observation, the relationship between human and animal captured with characteristic anatomical accuracy.