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Two horses, one dark brown and one cream white, stand together to our right against a landscape with rolling, sage-green hills and a river or canal in this horizontal painting. Near us, facing our right in profile, the brown horse rests his head across the back of the white horse, who stands with its tail toward us. The horses stand along the ridge of a grassy hill that dips beyond us to a waterway crossing the width of the canvas. Several buildings line the shore closer to us. At least one building has parchment-white walls and a red roof, and another has peanut-brown walls with a darker, chocolate-brown roof. More rooflines are nestled between, and gray smoke wafts from several chimneys. Long, low boats float near the opposite shore. The land rises in a hill across the water with more horses or other animals in the far pastures. The scene is loosely painted, and the background is the most indistinct, so some details are difficult to make out. Touches of brown and green suggest trees and perhaps more trees and buildings along the hill in the distance. The ivory-white sky is touched with pale, petal pink and a hint of blue near the horizon. The artist signed and dated the work with dark paint in the lower right corner: “E. Degas 71.”

Edgar Degas

Horses in a Meadow, 1871

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 87

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 31.8 x 40 cm (12 1/2 x 15 3/4 in.)

framed: 47 x 54.9 x 5.1 cm (18 1/2 x 21 5/8 x 2 in.)

Credit Line

Chester Dale Fund

Accession Number

1995.11.1

Artists / Makers

Edgar Degas (painter) French, 1834 - 1917

Image Use

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Inscription

lower right: E. Degas 71

Provenance

Purchased 26 April 1872 from the artist by (Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris); sent 12 December 1872 to (Durand-Ruel Gallery, London); sold 5 March 1874 to Jean Baptiste Faure [1830-1914], Paris; returned by Faure to Degas at the artist's request; gift to James Tissot [1836-1902], Paris; purchased 11 March 1890 by (Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris); acquired the same day by Joseph Durand-Ruel, Paris; acquired 25 August 1891 by Paul Durand-Ruel [1831-1922] for his private collection, Paris; his estate; sent 16 November 1925 to (Durand-Ruel Gallery, New York), where it was registered as stock in January 1936;[1] Mr. and Mrs. Jean D'Alayer, of the Durand-Ruel family, 1951 to at least 1960.[2] (Janet Traeger Salz, Inc., New York), by 1991; (sale, Sotheby's, London, 30 June 1992, no. 4, bought in); sold March 1995 to NGA.

[1] Early provenance per 1992 Sotheby's sale catalogue.

[2] Mrs. d'Alayer was born Marie-Louise Durand-Ruel, granddaughter of the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. The d'Alayers were lenders to a Degas exhibition at the Berner Kunstmuseum in 1951, and according to a label on the painting's stretcher, the lenders to a 1960 exhibition at Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris.

Associated Names

Durand-Ruel et Cie
Faure, Jean-Baptiste
Salz, Janet Traeger
Sotheby's, London
Tissot, James Jacques Joseph
d'Alayer, Jean

Exhibition History

1905: Pictures by Boudin, Cézanne, Degas, Manet, Monet, Morisot, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, Grafton Galleries, London, 1905, no. 60

1937: Exhibition of Masterpieces by Degas, Durand-Ruel Galleries, New York, 1937, no. 18

1943: Exhibition Celebrating One Hundred Fortieth Anniversary, Durand-Ruel Galleries, New York, 1943, no. 7.

1947: An Exhibition for the Benefit of American Aid to France, Inc., Durand-Ruel Galleries, New York, 1947, no. 17

1951: Degas, Kunstmuseum, Bern, 1951, no. 16

1955: Degas dans les collections françaises, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1955, no. 46

1960: Edgar Degas 1834-1917, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, 1960, no. 12, repro., as Chevaux dans la Prairie.

1991: Paintings, Pastels and Drawings by Edgard Degas, David Bathurst, Ltd., London, 1991, no. 2.

1998: Degas at the Races, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998, no. 39, repro.

2013: Intimate Impressionism from the National Gallery of Art, Museo dell'Ara Pacis Augustae, Rome (exhibition title in this venue: Impressionist Gems); California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco; McNay Art Museum, San Antonio; Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo, Seattle Art Museum, 2013-2016.

2016: Degas: A New Vision, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2016-2017, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

Bibliography

1890: L'art dans les deux mondes 5 (20 December 1890): 45, repro.

1892: Lecomte, Georges. L'Art Impressionniste d'après la Collection privée de M. Durand-Ruel. Paris, 1892: 60-61, repro.

1908: Grappe, Georges. Edgard Degas. Paris, 1908:26, repro.

1918: Lafond, Paul. Degas. 2 vols. Paris, 1918-1919: 2(1919):44, repro.

1931: Guérin, Marcel, ed. Lettres de Degas. Paris, 1931:17

1939: Venturi, Lionello. Les archives de l'impressionnisme. 2 vols. Paris and New York, 1939: 194

1946: Lemoisne, Paul André. Degas et son oeuvre. 4 vols. Paris: Arts et metiers graphiques, 1946-1949. Vols. 2 and 3, 1946. Reprinted in 5 vols., New York and London, 1984: 5:no. 289.

1957: Cabanne, Pierre. Edgard Degas. Paris, 1957:107-108

1970: Minervino, Fiorella. L'opera completa di Degas. Milan, 1970:no. 198, repro.

1988: Degas. Exh. cat. Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; National Gallery of Canada; Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1988-1989:221-223

1993: Kendall, Richard. Degas Landscapes. New Haven and London, 1993: 112-113, figs. 91, 101.