George Stubbs is best known as a painter of horses, but he was also an innovator in anatomy and a self-taught engraver. Early in his career, he spent eighteen months studying and drawing the anatomy of horses. For this purpose he set up a studio in a barn in Horkstow, Lincolnshire, in which he could hang a dead horse from hooks and tackle specially attached to the ceiling. Filling the blood vessels with a waxy substance to preserve their shape, he then carefully removed layers of skin and muscle, drawing as he went, until he reached the skeleton. This was the first time such a comprehensive and detailed study had been undertaken on the anatomy of horses. 

This work resulted in eighteen finished studies, which Stubbs attempted to have engraved and published. Unfortunately, he could not find and engraver or publisher to take up the project. So in 1759 he moved to London and set about etching the plates himself. Six years later, the plates were complete and Stubbs funded their publication himself. The result was the first edition of The Anatomy of the Horse, published in 1766. The work contained 24 engravings arranged across the studies, accompanied by tables that explained the findings. Such discoveries brought scientific knowledge of equine anatomy up to date and the book was invaluable to breeders, farriers and veterinary medicine. It was the most comprehensive study of horses since the sixteenth-century Anatomia del Cavallo of Carlo Ruini and qucikly superseded that work.

Stubbs felt that a thorough knowledge of anatomy would make him a better painter, and addressed his finished book not to the scientific community, but to other painters. His remarkably clear, detailed and accurate drawings did act as a kind of advertisement of his skill, and launched his career. Soon after the book was published, Stubbs began to receive painting commissions from various noble patrons, including the twice Prime Minister, the Marquess of Rockingham, who were impressed with the accuracy of his work.