Hand-painted in oil
About this Artwork
A race day seen from the street
The title names a race day, but the record files the work under city landscape, trees and architecture alongside Animal Art > Horse. That combination describes a different subject from the racecourse. It describes the traffic a race generates. On such a day the animals in the picture are not the runners; they are the ones pulling the vehicles that carry people out to see the runners.
What the record holds
The date of creation is 1887 and the location is the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), in Boston. The dimensions are not recorded. Impressionism is the recorded style, American the recorded nationality, and the measured colour family of the image is ochre.
Two jobs, one day
This catalogue separates the two functions wherever the record allows it. 25 entries name a race, a course or a derby, and 21 name a cart, a carriage, a coach, an omnibus, a trap, a wagon or a team. A race day picture can belong to either group, and it is the tags rather than the title that decide which. Here the tags point at the street.
Sources
1 references- Hassam, Childe — Getty ULAN
American painter and printmaker, 1859-1935
