Eagle, a Celebrated Stallion

James Ward, 1769–1859

1809

Oil on canvas

Yale Center for British Art

James Ward's 1809 oil painting "Eagle, a Celebrated Stallion" is a remarkable physical portrayal of a thoroughbred horse, evoking the latent power of a barely tamed creature. At the height of his long career James Ward was known as the “Mammoth of animal painters,” although he is remembered as a major force in the British Romantic tradition for his subject pictures and landscapes as well. In 1807 Ward began to paint pictures of thoroughbred horses, animals who had been carefully bred to achieve maximum speed on the racecourse. Eagle is one the finest of these portraits of thoroughbreds, and it exhibits Ward’s remarkable ability to create an accurate physical portrayal of a particular animal. At the same time he evokes a transcendent Romantic type—suggesting the latent power of the a barely tamed creature