(1724 - 1806), painter, s. of John Stubbs, currier, of Liverpool; exh. SA 1762 - 74, RA 1775 - 1803; Pres. SA 1773; ARA 1780; RA elect 1781.
1754 Rome (by Easter) [Liverpool 1755]
Stubbs was staying in Rome in the Piazza di Spagna ('verso il Bastianello') at Easter 1754,1 the only firm date of his Italian visit. He was back in Liverpool in 1755, when he signed and dated a portrait of James Stanley (Liverpool). It has been suggested that his Lincolnshire patron Lady Nelthorpe may have subsidized his trip,2 but this remains speculative.
Some forty years after Stubbs's visit Ozias Humphry compiled his rambling MS Memoir of 'The Life of Mr. Stubbs', from conversations with the artist.3 Stubbs told Humphry that in Rome he found William Chambers, Thomas Jenkins, Matthew Brettingham, Richard Wilson, [Gavin] Hamilton and Simon Vierpyl (all were there between 1753 - 4, except Gavin Hamilton who had left early in 1750 to return in 1756). Stubbs mentioned having 'accompanied the Students in Rome to view the Palaces of the Vatican, Borghese Colonna &c & consider the pictures in Rome', only to add that 'he always found himself differing from them in opinion'. Humphry recorded that 'Stubbs Motive for going thither was to convince himself that nature was & is always superior to art whether Greek or Roman, & having renew'd this conviction he immediately resolvd upon returning home'. Humphry noted that 'it does not appear that whilst he [Stubbs] resided in Rome he ever Copied one picture or ever design'd one subject for an Historical Composition, nor did he make one drawing or Model from the Antique'. But Stubbs's long preoccupation with the theme of a horse attacked by a lion almost certainly dates back to his visit to Rome, where he would have seen at the Palazzo dei Conservatori the large marble Lion Attacking a Horse, already familiar to English visitors through Jonathan Richardson's Account.
1. AVR sa, S.Lorenzo in Lucina. 2. B. Taylor, Stubbs, [1971], 9. 3. Picton coll., Liverpool Central Lib..
J. E.