Ships to the US & Canada Free shipping on prints over $50 CAD

George Stubbs · c. 1762

Whistlejacket

Posters from $15.00 CAD · Canvas from $39.00 CAD

Ships to the US & Canada

Stubbs's life-size portrait of the Marquess of Rockingham's racehorse — rearing on a featureless background, every muscle and vein rendered with anatomical precision. The National Gallery's most beloved horse.

Up to 20 × 24 in · portrait

Size

Larger sizes are unavailable for this painting because the source scan's resolution wouldn't print at gallery quality.

Format & finish

Archival cotton canvas stretched over a wooden frame. Ready to hang as-is. No external frame.

Scale next to a 5'10" person

2024

+ tax at checkout

Materials & quality

Canvas & inks

Giclée-printed on archival cotton canvas with fade-resistant pigment inks, hand-stretched over wooden bars. Gallery-wrapped — ready to hang with no extra frame needed.

Floater frame

Hand-finished solid wood floater frame in five finishes. The canvas sits inside with a clean shadow gap — the way galleries hang contemporary canvas.

Posters

Premium archival paper — 200 gsm soft matte or 230 gsm vibrant glossy. Ships flat or rolled, ready for your own frame.

Faithful to the source

Printed from the highest-resolution museum and archive scans available. Each painting's maximum size is capped at what its source scan can support at gallery quality.

The story of Whistlejacket

Whistlejacket is an oil-on-canvas painting from about 1762 by the British artist George Stubbs showing the Marquess of Rockingham's racehorse approximately at life-size, rearing up against a plain background. The canvas is large, lacking any other content except some discreet shadows, and Stubbs has paid precise attention to the details of the horse's appearance. It has been described in The Independent as "a paradigm of the flawless beauty of an Arabian thoroughbred". The Fitzwilliam family, heirs of the childless Rockingham, retained the painting until 1997 when funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund allowed the National Gallery, London to acquire it for £11 million.

Adapted from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

George Stubbs

George Stubbs was an English painter, best known for his paintings of horses. Self-trained, Stubbs learnt his skills independently from other great artists of the 18th century such as Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. Stubbs' output includes history paintings, but his greatest skill was in painting animals, perhaps influenced by his love and study of anatomy. His series of paintings on the theme of a lion attacking a horse are early and significant examples of the Romantic movement that emerged in the late 18th century. He enjoyed royal patronage. His painting Whistlejacket hangs in the National Gallery, London.

All George Stubbs prints →

Biography adapted from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.