Whistlejacket

Stubbs had spent eighteen months dissecting horses to learn how they are made, and here painted an Arabian stallion at full size, rearing, with nothing round it at all.

Whether a rider and a landscape were meant to follow is still argued about. The National Gallery bought it in 1997, and it hangs at the end of a long view, so the horse seems to rise over the visitors. Stand before it in 3D ›