Dürer to Seymour
The First Stables
The horse in the stable, two centuries before the classics.
Before the English turf had its classics, the horse already had its painters: Dürer’s knight on a horse drawn to ideal proportion, Paulus Potter’s spotted horse alone under a Dutch sky, Wouwerman’s stable at work, and the first English horse painters, John Wootton and James Seymour, recording the running horses of Newmarket and the men who owned them.
1513–1747 · Germany, the Dutch Republic & Britain
Knight, Death and the Devil
Dürer’s armoured rider and his great horse in a narrow gorge, engraved in 1513.
The “Piebald” Horse
A spotted horse stands alone on flat Dutch pasture, painted by Paulus Potter before 1654.
A Horse Stable
A Dutch stable where a gentleman and a lady arrive among the horses, by Philips Wouwerman.
Lamprey, with His Owner Sir William Morgan, at Newmarket
A dappled grey held by a groom at Newmarket while his owner looks on, signed J Wootton, 1723.
Lord Portmore Watching Racehorses at Exercise on Newmarket Heath
Racehorses gallop past a rubbing house on Newmarket Heath while their owner watches.
The Stables and Two Famous Running Horses of the Duke of Bolton
A grey and a chestnut in their stalls, painted by James Seymour in 1747.