The Lydiard Archives

New

New items added each week!

Photograph of popular head Mrs Coleman & pupils of Hook School, 1958/9. Interviewed by Lord Bolingbroke for the job, she was at the school for 20 years. Search Hook School.

New items added each week!

Lustre, held by a Groom, by George Stubbs, c1762

Lustre, held by a Groom, by George Stubbs, c1762
Hidden Content, Images, Videos and Documents

We hope you are enjoying browsing The Lydiard Archives. Sign up for free access to the entire contents of the Archives and receive regular updates on new collections and featured artefacts. We are uploading content daily, and we look forward to welcoming you to our free community.

Login Sign up

The following commentary is provided for the painting by the Yale Center of British Art:

'This is probably the first of at least ten paintings that George Stubbs made for the racing enthusiast Frederick St. John, second Viscount Bolingbroke, profligate heir to a great fortune (another, Turf, with Jockey Up, is shown nearby). Bolingbroke may have commissioned it after becoming familiar with similar pictures of racehorses by Stubbs at Althorp, home to his unloved and unfaithful wife, Lady Diana Spencer. Although of illustrious parentage, Lustre was not a winning racehorse and enjoyed only one successful season in 1760 before Bolingbroke sold him in 1762. Lustre nonetheless inspired this exceptional picture in which a liveried groom leads the horse through a rolling landscape beneath a turbulent sky, the setting perhaps intended for Bolingbroke’s estate at Lydiard Tregoze in Wiltshire.' 

Year:
c. 1762
Artist:
George Stubbs (1724-1806)
Type:
Oil On Canvas
Location:
Yale Center for British Art (not on view)
Reference:
B2001.2.122
Copyright:
Public Domain
Credit:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Last updated on:
Sunday 10th December 2023

Items of Interest

Turf, with Jockey up, at Newmarket, by George Stubbs, c1766
Turf, with Jockey up, at Newmarket, by George Stubbs, c1766

Turf, with Jockey up, at Newmarket was painted for...

Portrait miniature - brooch -of Frederick St.John, 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke
Portrait miniature - brooch -of Frederick St.John, 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke

This glamorous miniature and St.John family heirlo...