A Horse Drinking

Watering, which is the smallest unit of animal care

A working horse had to be watered, and the trough, the stream and the pond are where that happened. It is maintenance rather than employment: the animal has stopped, the handler is often absent, and the picture records an interval in the day rather than an activity. Eight titles in this register name bathing, washing, watering or drinking, which is a small but consistent group and the closest this catalogue comes to documenting what keeping an animal actually involved.

What the record holds

The date of creation is 1887 and the location is a private collection. The dimensions are 22.5 x 16 cm, the smallest surface area in this batch. Realism is the style term and French the nationality attached to the painter. The record files the work under landscape, Animal Art, Animal Art > Horse and a Vintage heading, and the measured colour family of the image is brown.

What a private location means for this entry

One hundred and forty-seven of the six hundred and thirty-six works in this register are recorded in private collections, and for those the location line cannot be checked against any institution's own catalogue. It states what the last published source said, and it can go out of date without anyone announcing it.