Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B2001.2.222
Gallery Label:
In Labourers, George Stubbs depicts a team of brickmakers in the midst of a dispute about the backboard of their cart. This enamel is the third in a group of works based on the same composition. The first was an oil painting made in 1767 for George Byng, fourth Viscount Torrington, as part of a series depicting servants at his estate in Bedfordshire. The master potter Josiah Wedgewood was deeply impressed by the second version, also painted in oils, which he saw in the Royal Academy exhibition of 1779; the experience led Wedgwood to commission portraits of himself and his wife, Sarah, from Stubbs, rather than from Joseph Wright of Derby. For large-scale enamels such as Labourers and Reapers, Stubbs used ceramic plaques developed by Wedgwood especially for the purpose, and he came to prefer these over the copper sheets he had used for earlier enamels such as Lion and Lioness.\n\n Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016
