Description
A study made for a larger racetrack composition rendered in pastel, Degas’s Jockey shows the attention that the artist lavished on perfecting the positions of the horse’s legs, hoofs, jaw straining against the bit, and the swish of the tail.
Provenance
estate of the artist (Lugt 658, lower left, in red ink and Lugt 657, verso, lower right, in red ink). [C.W. Kraushaar Gallery]
Accession Number
1927.301
Medium
charcoal
Dimensions
Sheet: 48.5 x 31.2 cm (19 1/8 x 12 5/16 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Credit Line
Gift of The Print Club of Cleveland
Tags
Drawing Impressionist & Modern (1851–1900) Charcoal French
Background & Context
Background Story
Degas's charcoal drawing of a jockey on horseback belongs to his less-known but equally important body of equestrian work. While his ballet dancers dominate the popular imagination, Degas was equally obsessed with horses and racing. He visited racetracks repeatedly throughout the 1860s-1880s, and his studies of horse anatomy and movement rank among the most acute in art history. This charcoal drawing strips the subject to its essentials: the relationship between rider and mount, the tension of the track, the dynamism of the horse's body in motion.
Cultural Impact
Degas's equestrian works are a crucial bridge between his classical training and his modernist eye. He studied Eadweard Muybridge's photographic motion studies in the 1880s, but his horses are never photographic — they are observed, remembered, and reconstructed with an anatomical precision that only someone who had spent decades drawing horses from life could achieve. The jockey, almost weightless on his mount, concentrates both the power of the horse and the control of the rider.
Why It Matters
The Jockey reminds us that Degas was an artist of movement in all its forms, not just ballet. His horses challenge Eadweard Muybridge's camera and win, because Degas understood what the camera could not: the felt experience of motion.
