This masterpiece of animal anatomy contains 36 plates that reproduce Stubbs' etchings. Based on the artist's own dissections and outline views, the illustrations feature extensive explanatory text. Full reproduction of 1766 edition.
George Stubbs (1724-1806), an English artist famous for his portraits of thoroughbred race horses and for other animal paintings, was also the author fo the illustrations an text of THE ANATOMY OF THE HROSE, one of the truly remarkable, anatomical studies of its subject. First published in 1766, Stubbs' work was based on numerous dissections, a practice far from generally accepted in his century. Stubbs' horses, shown in this edition on 36 large plates, are memorable for their uncanny life-like quality, nobility and extreme anatomical precision.
In this systematic study, Stubbs depicts the horse in three positions - side, front and back. He first presents the skeleton alone in each of these three positions, then devotes to each position five studies of layers of muscles, fascias, ligaments, nerves, arteries, veins, glands and cartilages. Accompanying each of these eighteen etchings is a schematic etched outline with lettered parts that are keyed to the identifying text. The text is given both in Stubbs' original version and in a modernized version preparedin the Thirties by JC McCunn and CW Ottaway.
Eleanor Garvey, Curator of Printing and Graphic Arts, Harvard College Liibrary, has written an introduction to the Dover edition, discussing Stubbs' career and the signigicance of this book. Of its value to artists, Stubbs said: "The Painter, Sculptor, and Designer, must be supposed best able to judge, how fitly the present work is accomodated to their purpose." Stubbs' work is still regarded as the greatest of all animal anatomies.
Unabridged, slightly altered reproduction of the 1938 edition by G Heywood Hill, Ltd., London
Paperback.