Belinda's Horse
Photo 8: London
We’re in the National Gallery, in London, in front of this huge painting: three metres high, by two-and-a-half metres wide. What do you notice?
D’uh…a horse.
Yes, very good. A horse. Almost life-size. With a touch of white on his forehead; a single white sock; luxuriant mane and tail. Performing—equestrians would tell us—a ‘levade’: his front legs lifted. Two points to your team.
Unfortunately that’s not the answer I was looking for, so I’m deducting five points. The answer was the background. Because there is none. And that, when the painting was made, was weird…
It’s a painting by George Stubbs—name like that and you’re thinking front row forward for the England rugby team, but no, he was a painter; son of a leather worker—a painting completed in 1762, which (2025, minus mutter, mutter, carry the two…) is quite a while ago.
Back then, it was expected a painting like this would have a background. A landscape. Elysian fields. And also some bloke—like a king, or emperor or nobleman—sitting on the horse: brave, all conquering, macho man. And, in fact, some have argued that the painting is unfinished: that Stubbs did the horse, for another painter to do the landscape, and someone else the bloke. But we don’t think that now.
We think it’s a painting of a horse. So yes, two points.
A horse named Whistlejacket. Because his colouring matches that of a drink known as a whistlejacket: two parts gin, one part treacle (ask for one, next time you’re having cocktails. Or try it at home. Or not.)1.
A race horse, owned by the extremely wealthy Marquess of Rockingham, twice Prime Minister, who had a grand house with three hundred rooms and stabling for two hundred horses. Whistlejacket had won a famous race and a two thousand guinea prize: hence, no doubt, the portrait.
Stubbs won the commission because of his work on the anatomy of a horse. He’d spent eighteen months in a barn, roping dead horses to the rafters, then cutting them up: skin, arteries, muscles, down to the bones. Illustrating a book for other artists to follow.
It was that period known as the Enlightenment, where science came to the fore. And Stubbs was taking a scientific approach to his paintings of horses: paintings that were more realistic—more lifelike—than ever before.
In particular, this painting, of Whistlejacket.
A painting we now know as ‘Belinda’s horse'. Because when (daughter, and scientist) Belinda lived in the U.K., whenever she was in London, she’d go to the National Gallery to spend some time with Whistlejacket.
And now we have too.
So it’s almost like we’ve been there together.
Next week: Fire, Fire!
A remedy for a throat illness that apparently created a distinct ‘whistle’.
Fascinating back story, thank you. And glad you enjoyed visiting it, like you say it’s now a shred experience which is special.
One of my favourite paintings at the National. Never knew he was named after a cocktail!