Gentlemen Jockeys before the Start

Gentlemen riders, which is a specific class of race

The title is precise in a way that matters. Gentleman jockeys were amateur riders, and races confined to them were a distinct fixture on the calendar, separate from the professional card. The picture is set before the start, which is the other precision in the title: this is the paddock and preliminary stage of a meeting, not the race. The horses are working, but the work has not begun, and pictures of this moment are about waiting, circling and being looked at.

What the record holds

The catalogue gives 1862 as the date of creation and the Musee d'Orsay in Paris as the location. The dimensions are 48.5 x 61.5 cm, wider than tall, which suits a line of runners. Impressionism is the recorded style and French the nationality. Landscape and rural categories accompany Animal Art > Horse, so the ground registered here is open country rather than an urban enclosure. The measured colour family of the image is yellow.

Reading the turf entries together

This register holds several pictures of the moments around a race by the same hand and from the same decade. Taken as a group they map the fixture rather than the contest: the start, the false start, the parade, the fall. Very little of it is the race.