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Study of a horse and jockey

Maker

(artist)
1834-1917

Title

Date of Production

1866 - 1875

Medium

graphite on wove paper

Dimensions

Height: 21.5 cm
Width: 17.2 cm

Accession Number

D.1978.PG.237

Mode of Acquisition

Count Antoine Seilern, bequest, 1978

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

Throughout his career, Degas practised drawing, and explored its various media as different means of expression. Pencil drawings stand out for their clear use of line. In this study, the artist has captured the rider's relaxed yet attentive pose on the back of his motionless horse, with only a few indications. The interrupted contour formed by succinct strokes, the summary modelling of the animal's body, and the thin paper type, suggest the drawing was traced, a practice Degas recommended to young artists.

Notes

William Bradford in the 1988 catalogue said this is a tracing, perhaps taken from a sheet in the Boijmans (https://www.boijmans.nl/en/collection/artworks/57531/drawing).

Provenance

artist's studio, L.257 (lower right), though did not appear in any of the four sales of studio's contents in 1918 and 1919; Gustave Pellet, Paris (1859-1919) (according to Thannhauser); by descent to his son-in-law, Maurice Exsteens (according to Thannhauser); purchased from him by Justin K. Thannhauser (in 1955 he wrote to Count Seilern that he had purchased the drawing "a long time ago"); purchased from him by Count Antoine Seilern, London (1901-1978), August 1955 (£780); Princes Gate Bequest 1978

Exhibition History

[display to inaugurate new gallery - no catalogue], Nelson Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, 1955 (summer)

Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Related Drawings from the
Courtauld Collections, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 11/05/1988-04/09/1988

The Princes Gate Collection - Drawings (Selection B), The Courtauld Gallery, London, 29/01/1982-25/07/1982

Literature

Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Related Drawings from the Courtauld Collections, Courtauld Gallery, London, 1988
cat. no. 13

The Princes Gate Collection - Drawings (Selection B), The Courtauld Gallery, London, 1982
cat. no. 159

Seilern, Count Antoine, Paintings and drawings of Continental Schools other than Flemish and Italian at 56 Princes Gate, London SW7, London 1961; III
no. 237
pl. LXII
dated early 1870s

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: none.

Inscription: none.

Collector's mark: Recto: lower right corner, stamped in red: Edgar Degas (L.657).

Label: Removed from former frame and now kept in object file: pen and ink on paper, old and degraded in areas: " 23 [followed by superscript "3] x 33 [followed by superscript "3"] / [...] Landscape / Degas."

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