George Stubbs - Two Horses Communing in at Landscape

Capability Brown's patron at Weston Park, commissioned the great equestrian painter, George Stubbs, to paint his two favourite horses within a landscape. Stubbs, besides having a passionate interest in the anatomy of the horse, was also interested in how the animals communicated and this picture, showing the two beasts facing each other, is an outstanding example of this. The painting shows a naturalistic landscape, whilst a coniferous and a deciduous tree are used as foils to the animals in the left foreground. In the 1777 inventory, the painting is given as being over the dining room fireplace at Weston Park in a room which is today the Tapestry Room. Set at the south east corner of the mansion, the room would have enjoyed views over the landscape that Brown had reformed - a landscape that was not unlike that shown in the background of the painting