The Reapers
George Stubbs, RA (Liverpool 1724 – London 1806)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1783 (signed and dated)
Materials
Oil and enamel on panel (oak)
Measurements
914 x 1372 mm (36 x 54 in)
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Upton House, Warwickshire
NT 446709
Summary
Oil and enamel painting on oak panel, The Reapers, by George Stubbs RA (Liverpool 1724 – London 1806), Geo. Stubbs pinxit 1783. A park landscape and a cornfield where a farmer mounted on a bay cob stops to converse with the reapers. A girl stands facing the spectator, twisting two wisps of wheat ready to bind a sheaf which a man is holding; another man cuts the corn with a sickle, while a third stacks the sheaves, left.
Provenance
Sir Walter Gilbey, 1st Bt (1831 -1914) of Elsenham Hall, Essex, by 1898; his sale, Christie's, London, 11 June 1915, lot 388; bought by Agnew; with Knoedler, 1919, from whom acquired by Lord Bearsted, in November 1919, for £1,000; given with Upton House to the National Trust by Walter Samuel, 2nd Viscount Bearsted (1882 – 1948), in 1948, shortly before his death
Credit line
Upton House, The Bearsted Collection (National Trust)
Marks and inscriptions
Geo. Stubbs pinxit 1783 (signed and dated)
Makers and roles
George Stubbs, RA (Liverpool 1724 – London 1806), artist
Exhibition history
Becoming America: How Science Shaped a Nation, Science Museum, London, 2026 - 2027 Creating the Countryside: The Rural IdyII 1600-2017 (working title), Compton Verney, Warwickshire, 2017, no.51
References
Gilbey 1898 Sir Walter Gilbey, Life of George Stubbs, London, 1898, pp.148, No.7 Dibdin 1918 E.R. Dibdin, 'Liverpool Art and Artists in the 18th Century', Walpole Society, VI, 1918, p.64 (note), Pl. XXIb Sparrow 1922: Walter Shaw Sparrow, British Sporting Artists, London, 1922, p.124, repd Wilenski 1933: R.H. Wilenski, English Painting, London, 1933, Pl.52a Sitwell 1937 Sacheverell Sitwell. Sitwell, Narrative Pictures, London, 1937, Pl. 72 Gaunt 1945 William Gaunt, British Painting from Hogarth’s Day to Ours, London, 1945, Pl.6 Waterhouse 1994 Ellis K. Waterhouse, Painting in Britain 1530-1790, Pelican History of Art, Harmondsworth, [1st Pub.1953], 1994 ed., p.219, Pl.179b Creating the Countryside: the Rural Idyll Past and Present (Ed. Verity Elson and Rosemary Shirley), to accompany the exhibition at Compton Verney, 18 March - 18 June 2017, Cat. 51, pp.82-83