Hand-painted in oil
About this Artwork
The one place where the animal is merchandise
A horse market is the point in the animal's working life at which its function is neither transport, nor sport, nor display, but price. Everything else this register catalogues shows the horse doing something for somebody; a market shows it being valued, examined and exchanged. That is the economic foundation under every other entry here — the racing pictures, the coaching pictures and the plough teams all presuppose an animal that was bought — and this catalogue contains very few pictures of it.
What the record holds
The catalogue gives 1877 as the date of creation and the Belvedere in Vienna as the location, one of three works in this register recorded there. No dimensions are given; the field is empty. Realism is the style term and Austrian the nationality attached to the painter. The record files the work under landscape and rural headings only, with no animal category at all, and the measured colour families of the image are ochre and yellow.
What a market picture will not tell you
Nothing in the record states a price, a trade or a day. Market subjects invite exactly those questions and this catalogue answers none of them, which is worth saying plainly rather than filling in with plausible detail.
Sources
2 references- Pettenkofen, August von — Getty ULAN
Austrian painter and lithographer, 1822-1889
- August von Pettenkofen - Pferdemarkt in Szolnok II - 4705 - Österreichische Galerie Belvedere — Wikimedia Commons
High-resolution image of the work, hosted on Wikimedia Commons.
