Gimcrack, with John Pratt up, on Newmarket Heath

Gimcrack on Newmarket Heath from 1765 by George Stubbs depicts one of the most famous racehorses of the eighteenth century. Gimcrack's popularity and racing success made him a prized subject for Stubbs, whose Newmarket paintings documented the social world of Georgian horse racing. Stubbs painted primarily in oil on canvas and board, achieving a distinctive cool clarity through a careful layered technique built over a white ground. His seven years of dissecting horses in a remote Lincolnshire...

The racehorse is depicted with characteristic anatomical exactitude, the Newmarket landscape providing the authentic racing context.