Mother and Child

Mother and Child from 1774 by George Stubbs is a rare domestic genre subject from the animal painter. The tender subject demonstrates Stubbs's ability in figure painting beyond his primary equestrian and animal specialties. 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 unmatched in...

The domestic scene demonstrates Stubbs's figure painting ability, the maternal subject rendered with warmth and careful observation.