拍品專文
Degas once remarked to the critic François Thiébault that he had turned to sculpture to portray his equine subjects because he felt that "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., National Gallery of Art, London, 1996, p. 255). According to Charles Millard, Degas' equine sculptures form two distinct groups: the early works being conceived prior to 1881 and the second group being created between 1881 and 1890. Jean Sotherland Boggs surmises that Cheval au trot, les pieds ne touchant pas le sol is from circa 1880 since it emulates the positions of Eadweard Muybridge's photographs of horses in motion that were published in France in 1878 and which were referred to in a notation in Degas' notebook of 1878-1879 (op cit., p. 190).