Turf, with Jockey up, at Newmarket
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.The setting, with its low horizon, is based on Stubbs’s study of a rubbing house and race course on Newmarket Heath. Shown at the peak of his career, Turf was a bay colt owned by Lord Bolingbroke, one of Stubbs’s early patrons. The jockey wears Bolingbroke’s colors – black jacket and cap with buff breeches. Horse and rider are composed and alert, poised for the race to begin. One jockey recalled, “I was mounted on the noblest that the earth contains, had him under my care, and was borne by him over hill and dale, far outstripping the wings of the wind.”
Artwork Details
- Title: Turf, with Jockey up, at Newmarket
- Artist: George Stubbs (British, Liverpool 1724–1806 London)
- Date: ca. 1765
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 38 × 49 in. (96.5 × 124.5 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
- Curatorial Department: European Paintings