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Lot Essay
Degas once remarked to the critic François Thiébault-Sisson that, in his desire 'to achieve exactitude so perfect in the representation of animals that a feeling of life is conveyed, one had to go into three dimensions' (quoted in R. Kendall, Degas: beyond Impressionism, exh. cat., London, 1996, p. 255).
Millard suggests that the equine sculptures form two distinct groups. He dates the early pieces to before 1881, and this group consists of horses at rest, standing still, or walking. The second group was created between 1881-1890 and includes horses in exaggerated motion, either trotting or galloping. The latter group was possibly executed with the aid of Edweard Muybridge's series of photographs of horses in motion, first published in 1878, and exhibited in Paris in 1881 and 1882.
Cheval marchant au pas relevé, belongs to the earlier group. This majestic racehorse, with its lively gait, slender limbs and open mouth, manages to combine Degas's search for naturalism at the same time as achieving a classical balance, recalling the horses of San Marco, Venice or Verrocchio's Colleoni, Venice.
Millard suggests that the equine sculptures form two distinct groups. He dates the early pieces to before 1881, and this group consists of horses at rest, standing still, or walking. The second group was created between 1881-1890 and includes horses in exaggerated motion, either trotting or galloping. The latter group was possibly executed with the aid of Edweard Muybridge's series of photographs of horses in motion, first published in 1878, and exhibited in Paris in 1881 and 1882.
Cheval marchant au pas relevé, belongs to the earlier group. This majestic racehorse, with its lively gait, slender limbs and open mouth, manages to combine Degas's search for naturalism at the same time as achieving a classical balance, recalling the horses of San Marco, Venice or Verrocchio's Colleoni, Venice.