Conformation and the Parade Ring · The Conformation
A Horse Frightened by a Snake
Sawrey Gilpin, 1792 · oil on canvas
What it is
A black horse wheels away from a snake on the ground in a rocky dell, painted by Sawrey Gilpin on an oval canvas, signed and dated 1792.
Why it matters
Gilpin, a Royal Academician who specialised in horses and dogs, answered Stubbs’s lion pictures with a smaller, nearer danger.
What to notice
The oval closes the scene in, and the horse’s whole body turns in a single curve away from the threat.
Fear, from the grass up.
Provenance
- Maker
- Sawrey Gilpin, 1792
- Era
- The Georgian Turf (1750–1837)
- Chapter
- The Yard Wakes
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Made
- 1792
- Source
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection · via Wikimedia Commons
Rights: CLEAR. Public domain — U.S. 95-year rule (published 1930 or earlier). Gated by the work’s own year of publication. Cleared by registry on 2026-11-01. Wikimedia Commons licence tag, read 2026-11-01: PD-Art|PD-old-100-1923|deathyear=1807. The maker died in 1807.
Format
The full-resolution, color-managed file — restored honestly, yours to print and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan supports sizes up to 18x24" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
More from the Stable Wall
Elsewhere in the family
- The Links — the other morning religion.
- Painted Lineage — the bloodline, beside the family line.
- Painted Earth — home ground as a period map.