Horse Attacked by a Lion

British artist George Stubbs created this dramatic scene around 1762, one of at least seventeen paintings he made on this theme over thirty years. A lion leaps onto a terrified horse's back, sinking its claws into the flesh. The horse's expression conveys pure terror and pain in a scene that anticipates Romantic art's emotional intensity.

One story suggests Stubbs witnessed a lion killing a wild horse during a visit to Morocco, though this is likely legend. The more probable inspiration was an ancient Roman marble sculpture well known in London's artistic circles. Stubbs approached the subject with the same anatomical precision he brought to his famous studies of horse anatomy.

According to art historian Diana Donald, these paintings show four stages of the lion's attack, depicting nature's ferocity through heroic animal representations. This version hangs at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Connecticut.