Our new website

All my working life authors wishing to publish photographic reproductions of works of art that are (a) owned by public institutions, and (b) out of copyright, have labored under a punishing regime of fees for permission, fees for reproduction, fees, fees, fees. It is a burden that has cost many of us more than our published work will ever earn back in royalties, and has therefore put an almighty brake on scholarship in every branch of the history of art, and much else besides. For many impecunious art museums, the system has been regarded as a valuable income stream, and as a way of controlling the quality of such reproductions of the works in their care as find their way into print. However, the cost of gathering those fees is often greater than the annual income so generated, and in the era of the internet no museum, however great, can ever possibly hope to maintain that control. People will simply go ahead and scan a magazine illustration then manufacture Mona Lisa bathmats any way they can, usually in Guangzhou.

So we are leading by example. Henceforth we at the Yale Center for British Art will gladly make available through our website easily downloadable high-resolution print-quality photographic reproductions of anything in our collection that is out of copyright—free, gratis, and for nothing. Nor does it concern us in any way whatsoever how you wish to use these reproductions, in print or online. We are sufficiently confident that people everywhere will grasp the difference between a photo and the real thing, and if the dissemination of accurate reproductions of our works of art achieve wide distribution, so much the better. We do not and will not make judgments of taste in respect of the suitability or otherwise of George Stubbs’s Zebra, say, wandering onto a muu-muu or shower curtain any more than we interfere with law-abiding visitors to our galleries during normal opening hours. And we are certainly not so paranoid that we regard such unconventional forms of reproduction as an affront to the artist, or so pompous as to see ourselves as the sole custodian of his posthumous reputation—indeed we are confident that Stubbs will be taken no less seriously should his zebra ever put in an appearance on a G-string at the carnival in Rio. Ideally we would prefer non-commercial use, but these days what is non-commercial? You will see that we have put in place a simple mechanism that ought to prevent a robot from vacuuming up everything. All that we are asking our users is that in due course they let us know where they elect to publish reproductions of works in this collection so that our records can be kept as up-to-date as possible.

It’s about time, isn’t it? And the cultural and philosophical bases are entirely logical. We are a public institution, and thanks to the munificence of our founder the late Paul Mellon access to the objects entrusted to our care is free, clear, unrestricted, and open to any and everyone in perpetuity, subject of course to the law of copyright, and to routine logistical or conservation constraints. But even there we do our best to show people whatever they want to see that may happen to be in storage just now. So the new website and our new policy about reproductions are merely an extension of that.

So, authors, come ye, shout it from the rooftops, tell your colleagues and friends, alert your publishers to this valuable new resource, and feel free to rake through our website, search high and low, right across the collections, and download to your heart’s content. Be fruitful, and multiply!

Sayonara

The artist George Stubbs was teetotal for the last forty years of his life, which leaves the first forty intriguingly unaccounted for. At forty-four—as usual I am late—I have now been firmly nudged by reliable, indeed impressively qualified medical authorities here at Yale. Their advice, while gently articulated, is unequivocal: The time has come for me to follow suit. The fact that I find myself so crestfallen at the very thought of bidding adieu to that civilized aperitif the martini, with its ingeniously thought-inducing properties at the end of the working day, probably constitutes sure and certain proof that their advice is sage, and my decision the right one. Nobody is holding a gun to my head. Nor indeed do we necessarily rejoice when the shutters come clattering down over certain avenues of particular pleasure. Resistance is entirely natural, but in the end sadly futile. The body must take precedence over the mind. At any rate, I suppose the knack is to conceive of this little change as holding the promise of other, equally enjoyable branch-lines or by-ways of pleasure by which to continue on the next stage of my life’s journey, and try not to mind about it too much. Easier said than done, but if George could do it (and succeed in the gin-drenched London of 1764) then how much easier should it be for me to accomplish the same thing now?

Letter from Fort Worth

I take it all back about Texas (Letter from New Haven). Everyone is ‘y’all,’ and although Fort Worth is as flat as a pancake, it has an Edward Hopper-ish quality. From the direction of the cattle yards the sound of railway engines shunting back and forth drifts across the city. Real cowboys descend from pick-up trucks, and go shopping for colourful boots. The social column in this morning’s Star Telegram, which is all about a genteel sit-down literary afternoon tea at the Public Library, mentions somebody with a ‘Dresden complexion.’ Presumably this means milk-white and creamy like the porcelain, not bombed to smithereens and rebuilt years later. Anyway, the cowboys are here for the Texas rodeo, and I am attending a conference at the Kimbell Art Museum about George Stubbs.

After the last session, a delegate takes me home to River Crest, Fort Worth’s single hill. Her house is a château with mod cons, set among walnuts and magnolias, overlooking the west fork of the Trinity River. Curiously, neighbours let themselves in through the front door one by one, and join us for drinks. Mine comes in what can only be described as a sterling silver bucket, wet and freezing. House guests materialize from distant regions, including Mrs. G., an experienced dressage rider and trainer visiting from London who exercises horses for the Queen. We talk side-saddle.

I have been intrigued by one of the portraits in the Kimbell’s Stubbs show: Letitia, Lady Lade (Royal Collection). She too is slightly ‘Dresden,’ and wears a large hat. Her mount is rearing. You can tell by the outstretched front legs; skilled riders in equestrian portraits by Velázquez or statues by Bernini are doing something entirely different. They are performing a levade, one of the most difficult, controlled movements in high-style dressage. It is for the horse a balancing act, much more like a crouch than a rear, the weight thrown back on the hind legs, the front legs tucked in close to the breast. But whereas Philip of Spain or Louis XIV conjured this movement by cueing with their thighs and buttocks, I wonder what you can do about a rearing horse when riding side-saddle. Who better to ask than Mrs. G.?

‘How much do you know about horses?’ she asks, drily.

I sense I have gained full marks for interest, but failed on general knowledge. Mrs. G. turns back to the illustration in the catalogue.

‘It’s impossible.’ She raises her eyebrows. ‘You couldn’t stay on like that. You know, not unless you forced your left foot right down in the stirrup.’

Her hands gather up invisible reins.

‘Troublesome mare, too.’
‘Really?’ I have no idea what she is talking about.
‘Absolutely,’ she continues, shaking her head. ‘Ears turned back. Sure sign of mischief, or anger. No, it’s a nonsense – unless Stubbs wanted to make the lady look as if she hadn’t the foggiest notion of what she was doing.’

According to Malcolm Warner’s catalogue essay, Letitia Darby (alias ‘Mrs Smith’) emerged from obscurity, an adventuress, and was by the mid-1780s firmly established as mistress to the Prince of Wales. Slightly later she married his crony, the racing enthusiast and card-carrying rake Sir John Lade. Lady Lade was famous for using bad language, and was held partly responsible for the Prince’s unpopularity. Stubbs painted her portrait in 1793. So maybe the picture was a horsy person’s joke at the expense of the enterprising Lady Lade, whom Stubbs shows floundering, side-saddle, on an angry rearing horse.

But she doesn’t look as if she’s floundering.

Back in New Haven, I am tickled to discover in the glorious new Oxford Dictionary of National Biography an article about the unattractive ‘racehorse owner and miser,’ Michael Lade, who, despite years of failure, eventually did well at Newmarket. In 1797, he won the Oatland Stakes with his bay colt ‘by Dungannon out of Letitia.’ Letitia. How many unrelated men with the surname of Lade could be associated in the 1790s with famous Letitias, human or equine? Though the ODNB does not say so, Michael Lade must have been related to Lady Lade’s husband Sir John.

Now, Stubbs certainly painted Dungannon, who was owned by the bouncy Irish racing identity Dennis O’Kelly. That great picture, which belongs to the Earl of Halifax, is also in Fort Worth just now. And Dungannon was the son of Eclipse, whom many consider the greatest racehorse of all time, a great-great grandson of the Darley Arabian, one of the three miracle-working stallions who came to England in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and, with the vital cooperation of local mares, brought about the thoroughbred revolution.

But what about that dam Letitia?

If Lady Lade had been really lousy on horseback, and Stubbs’s portrait were a kind of joke, would anyone who rejoiced in the name of Lade and loved breeding thoroughbreds bother to name his mare after her? I doubt it. Instead, I have a feeling Lady Lade was a pretty good whip, and that Stubbs did not worry too much about the disposition of ladies’ feet when riding side-saddle.

I shall definitely come back to Texas.