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A man stands with one arm resting over the back of a chestnut-brown horse as two women approach the animal in this horizontal portrait painting set in a landscape. The people have pale skin, dark eyes, and ash-brown or gray hair. At the center of the composition, the cleanshaven man stands with his body angled to our left as he looks off in that direction. He has a rounded nose, a dimple in his slight double chin, and he smiles faintly. A black tricorn hat sits on his gray hair, which curls up over his ears. His uniform has a long, pearl-white vest over a high, bright-white collar. His knee-length red coat is open, and the side closer to us is tucked back behind a sword hanging on that hip. The coat is lined with navy blue and gold down the front and around the cuff we see. The vest and coat have gold-colored buttons, and a gloved hand rests on the scabbard by his side. He wears white britches and knee-high, black boots with spurs. One ankle crosses in front of the other as he leans gently against the horse. The animal bends one back leg to rest along the front edge of its hoof as it reaches its muzzle forward, toward the women to our left. One woman sits in a wood armchair in front of the horse as she holds some pink flowers to the animal’s nose. She has a bumped nose, dark brows, and her delicate, pale pink lips are parted. Her hair is teased high and covered at the back with a white cloth. A voluminous, pearl-white, hooded shawl covers all of her upper body except the proffered hand. The lace edge of the white skirt puddles on the dirt ground. Behind her, the second woman leans over her crossed forearms, which rest on the back of the chair. This second woman has large eyes and delicate features. The top of her hair is also covered with a cloth, and she wears a black choker and a black apron over a sapphire-blue and white dress. A thick-trunked tree behind the women fills the left half of the composition, and its dark canopy reaches almost across the top half of the painting. A few plants line the far side of the dirt ground to our right. An expanse of silvery water curves like a C around a rocky promontory in the distance, also to our right. Smoke-gray mountains, hazy in the distance, stretch across the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up the composition. Some steel-gray and pale peach clouds cover much of the ice-blue sky.

George Stubbs

Captain Samuel Sharpe Pocklington with His Wife, Pleasance, and possibly His Sister, Frances, 1769

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 61

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 100.2 x 126.6 cm (39 7/16 x 49 13/16 in.)

framed: 120.7 x 146.4 x 7.6 cm (47 1/2 x 57 5/8 x 3 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Mrs. Charles S. Carstairs in memory of her husband, Charles Stewart Carstairs

Accession Number

1952.9.4

Artists / Makers

George Stubbs (artist) British, 1724 - 1806

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Overview

Captain Pocklington, who wears the uniform of the Scots Guard, retired from the third regiment in 1769, the same year that Stubbs painted this group portrait. Seated on the bench is the captain's wife, Pleasance, who is probably wearing bridal clothes. The woman standing behind Pleasance is presumably Pocklington's sister, Frances.

Stubbs' fame is based on his precise and naturalistic depictions of animals, primarily horses, even in paintings such as this that are ostensibly about human matters. Stubbs lived in a world fascinated with scientific inquiry; he himself actually performed dissections of animals to fully understand their anatomy.

Stubbs' interest in the structure and complexity of living things led him to adopt a working style in which he first painted the individual figures and then completed the background and secondary details. The subjects are arranged in a friezelike pattern against the darker, more muted shades of the massive tree and fanciful landscape. Stubbs was not invited to exhibit at the Royal Academy because he had been labeled as a horse painter, and his popularity sank even lower during the romantic era. Now in an age that looks back on pioneers such as Stubbs with fascination and respect, his stature as an artist has greatly increased.

More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, which is available as a free PDF https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/british-paintings-16th-19th-centuries.pdf

Inscription

lower right: Geo: Stubbs / pinxit 1769

Provenance

Painted for Samuel Sharpe Pocklington [d. 1781], Chelsworth Hall, Suffolk; by descent through his elder son, Colonel Sir Robert Pocklington, who married Catherine Blagrave, to John Blagrave, Calcot Park, Berkshire; (sale, Messrs. Foster, London, 28 June 1911, no. 102); purchased by Francis Howard for (M. Knoedler & Co., New York, London, and Paris); purchased by 1913 by Charles Stewart Carstairs [1865-1928], London; by inheritance to his wife, Mrs. Charles S. Carstairs [née Elizabeth Stebbins, d. 1949], London;[1] bequest 1952 to NGA.

[1] According to a letter (copy in NGA curatorial files) from Mrs. Carstairs to David Finley, 15 November 1947, the painting never left England, and always hung in the Carstairs house in London. Charles S. Carstairs was the director of Knoedler's London branch. Mrs. Carstairs' maiden name is provided in a letter of 13 February 1995 from Dr. Lorne Campbell, of the National Gallery, London, in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Blagrave, Catherine Frances
Blagrave, John
Carstairs, Charles S., Mrs.
Carstairs, Charles Stewart
Foster, Messrs.
Howard, F.
Knoedler & Company, M.
Pocklington, Robert, Colonel Sir
Pocklington, Samuel Sharpe

Exhibition History

1927: Meisterwerke englischer Malerei aus drei Jahrhunderten, Secession, Vienna, 1927, no. 54, repro.

1930: English Conversation Pieces, Sir Philip Sassoon's, 45 Park Lane, London, 1930, no. 47 (souvenir, 49, repro.).

1934: British Art, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1934, no. 395 (commemorative catalogue, no. 165, repro.).

1936: Loan to display with the permanent collection, Tate Gallery, London, 1936-1947.

1984: George Stubbs 1724-1806, Tate Gallery, London; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1984-1985, no. 107, color repro., color detail, (catalogue by Judy Egerton).

2004: Stubbs & The Horse, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth; The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; The National Gallery, London, 2004-2005, no. 58, fig. 61.

Technical Summary

The medium-weight canvas is plain woven; it has been lined, but the tacking margins still survive intact. The lining and nonoriginal stretcher may be over one hundred years old; fabrics were mounted on the new stretcher slightly off center, so that original paint extends slightly onto the top edge of the stretcher and about half an inch of overpainted ground appears along the bottom edge. The ground is grayish white, of moderate thickness. The painting is executed smoothly, fluidly, and fairly thickly, with low impasto. Visible to the naked eye is an old, horizontal, retouched tear about 10 cm. long extending in from the right edge slightly above the rocks. The overall craquelure was inpainted in 1984; the abrasion in the horse's rump and in the dark foliage above the horse's tail was glazed over at the same time; although the original and lining fabrics are somewhat fragile, the restoration of 1984 did not include relining. The synthetic varnish has not discolored.

Bibliography

1960: Cooke, Hereward Lester. British Painting in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1960 (Booklet Number Eight in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 24, color repro., as Colonel Pocklington with His Sisters.

1962: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Treasures from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1962: 126, color repro., as Colonel Pocklington with His Sisters.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 319, repro., as Colonel Pocklington with His Sisters.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 126, as Colonel Pocklington with His Sisters.

1966: Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:356, color repro., as Colonel Pocklington and His Sisters.

1968: Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. (Great Museums of the World.) New York, 1968: 147-148, color repro.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 112, repro., as Colonel Pocklington with His Sisters.

1971: Praz, Mario. Conversation Pieces. London, 1971: 134, color cover and color fig. 95.

1971: Taylor, Basil. Stubbs. London, 1971: 37-38, pls. 57-59.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 334, repro., as Colonel Pocklington with His Sisters.

1975: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: no. 529, color repro.

1979: Watson, Ross. The National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1979: 92, pl. 79.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 368, no. 516, color repro., as Colonel Pocklington and His Sisters.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 384, repro.

1992: Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 259-261, color repro. 260.

1992: National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 144, repro.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 282-283, no. 230, color repro.