Haymakers & Reapers

These beautiful paintings, executed by Stubbs at the age of sixty, are among the most outstanding paintings by the English school. The peasant figures are unglamorised in their toil, giving a foretaste of the realism that was to be adopted by Stubbs's followers and imitators. Gainsborough, his contemporary, was still painting romantically-idealized pastoral scenes at that period. This purchase was the result of a dramatic campaign to 'save' a work of art for the nation. A public appeal was launched and Tate started a series of lotteries, permissible under the new regulations on fund raising. The Tate was the first public gallery to raise money in this way.