ONE of George Stubbs’s finest equestrian paintings failed to find a buyer at Sotheby’s in London last night.
The beautiful and atmospheric Stallion and Mare, created by the Liverpool-born artist in 1769, had been expected to fetch up to £3m at the sale – but did not manage to reach its reserve price.
The current world auction record for a work by Stubbs is Portrait of The Royal Tiger, which went for £3.2m at Christie’s in London in 1995.
And the picture on offer last night – last sold at auction in 1987, when it realised £380,000 – had been expected to challenge that price.
George Stubbs established himself as the most sought-after painter of horses of his day, and arguably became the greatest animal painter in the history of art.
Other top prices for works by Stubbs at auction in recent years include a painting of a racehorse which remained unidentified for 200 years, which sold for £2.7m, and a monumental painting of a Newfoundland dog, believed to have been called Nelson, which fetched £2.2m.
