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A dog with short, curly, white hair stands in a wooden boat facing our right almost in profile, though it turns its head to look at us in this vertical portrait painting. The dog spans nearly the width of the canvas and is close to us. The dog’s ears hang down the side of its face to its chin. Its eyes are light brown and rimmed in black, and the lower lids are pink. The dog has a thick torso covered with tight curls, and it has a short puff of a tail. Its front legs are straight and the hind legs might be slightly bent. The dog stands on a slat spanning the width of the boat, which is angled away from us to our left. The landscape behind the has a calm, sage-green body of water with a tall, willow-like tree to our left and a lower band of leafy trees to our right. A few smoke-gray clouds float over the treetops in an otherwise pale blue sky.

George Stubbs

White Poodle in a Punt, c. 1780

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 61

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 127 x 101.5 cm (50 x 39 15/16 in.)

Credit Line

Paul Mellon Collection

Accession Number

1999.80.22

Artists / Makers

George Stubbs (painter) British, 1724 - 1806

Image Use

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Provenance

Possibly Sir Jarrit Smith or Smyth [1692-1783], Ashton Court, near Bristol, Somerset;[1] by descent in the family to his great-great-great-granddaughter, Esmé Smyth [née Edwards, 1863-1946], Ashton Court.[2] Lord de Mauley, Langford House, Lechdale, Gloucestershire; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 8 July 1949, no. 131); (Frank Sabin, London); purchased 1951 by the 21st Earl of Shrewsbury and Waterford [1914-1980], Ingestre Hall, Staffordshire;[3] (sale, Sotheby & Co., London, 23 March 1960, no. 63); purchased by (Colnaghi, London) for Paul Mellon, Upperville, Virginia; bequest 1999 to NGA.

[1] See Judy Egerton, George Stubbs, Painter. Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven and London, 2007: no. 259, 486 n. 1.

[2] Esmé Edwards married the Hon. Gilbert Irby, but later took the name of Smyth when she inherited Ashton Court after her mother's death in 1914. Her mother, Emily Frances Way (1835-1914), was married twice, first to George Oldham Edwards, who died in 1883, then in 1884 to her cousin, Greville Upton (who became Greville Smyth by Royal License in 1859 in order to inherit the Smyth estates, and who died in 1901). See Anton Bantock, The Inside Story of the Smyths of Ashton Court, Bristol, 1980. The painting was not included in her estate sale, conducted at Ashton Court by John E. Pritchard & Co., 3-6 and 10-13 July 1947; see Egerton 2007, 486.

[3] The full name of the 21st Earl was John George Charles Henry Alton Alexander Chetwynd Chetwynd-Talbot. The painting is listed in a January 1953 catalogue of his pictures, where the entry includes the information about the Earl's purchase from Sabin: Anthony Crofton, "A Catalogue of the Pictures at Ingestre Hall, Staffordshire, Belonging to The Rt. Hon. The Earl of Shrewsbury and Waterford," in Collections for a History of Staffordshire Edited by The Staffordshire Record Society..., London, 1954: 73, no. 46.

Associated Names

Chetwynd-Talbot, 21st Earl of Shrewsbury and Waterfor, John George Charles Henry Alton Alexander Chetwynd
Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Colnaghi & Co., Ltd., P. & D.
Mauley, Lord de
Mellon, Paul
Smyth, Esmé
Sotheby's, London

Exhibition History

1951: Two Great Masterpieces. Velasquez - Rubens, Frank T. Sabin, London, 1951, no. 35.

1953: Works of Art from Midland Houses, City of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, 1953, no. 72.

1957: George Stubbs 1724-1806, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1957, no. 40, pl. XXII, as A Poodle in a Punt.

1958: The Age of Rococo: Art and Culture of the Eighteenth Century, The Residenz, Munich, 1958, no. 192, repro.

1963: Painting in England 1700-1850: Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Paul Mellon, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 1963, no. 314, repro., as White Poodle in a Boat.

1964: Painting in England 1700-1850 from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1964-1965, no. 275, repro., as White Poodle in a Boat.

1965: Painting in England 1700-1850 from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 1965, no. 187, repro., as White Poodle in a Boat.

1984: George Stubbs 1724-1806, Tate Gallery, London; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1984-1985, no. 97, repro.

1985: Stubbs: An Exhibition in Honor of Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1985, no. 21, repro. (brochure).

1991: Art for the Nation: Gifts in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1991, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

1999: An Enduring Legacy: Masterpieces from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1999-2000, no cat.

1999: George Stubbs in the Collection of Paul Mellon: A Memorial Exhibition, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 1999-2000, no. 55, repro. (shown only in New Haven).

2006: Best in Show: The Dog in Art from the Renaissance to Today, Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2006-2007, unnumbered catalogue, fig. 33 (shown only in Houston).

Bibliography

1971: Parker, Constance-Anne. Mr. Stubbs the Horse Painter. 1971: 100, repro. 96.

1975: Neve, Christopher. "The Dog Beneath the Skin: Stubbs's Dog Portraits." Country Life CLVII, No. 4049 (6 February 1975): 314-315, fig. 1.

1978: Egerton, Judy. British Sporting and Animal Paintings 1655-1867: The Paul Mellon Collection. London, 1978: 100-101, no. 98, pl. 36.

1991: Gingold, Diane J., and Elizabeth A.C. Weil. The Corporate Patron. New York, 1991: 190, repro.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 281, no. 227, color repro.

2013: Harris, Neil. Capital Culture: J. Carter Brown, the National Gallery of Art, and the Reinvention of the Museum Experience. Chicago and London, 2013: 421.