Polo at Lakewood

A sport that is not a race

Polo puts the horse to a job racing does not: not speed in a straight line but starting, stopping and turning under a rider whose hands are busy with something else. This is the only record in the catalogue whose title names the game, and it is filed under a field heading and Animal Art > Horse.

What the record holds

The date of creation is 1910 and the location is the Columbus Museum of Art, in Columbus. The dimensions are not recorded. American Realism and Realism are the recorded style terms, American the recorded nationality, and the measured colour families of the image are neutral and green.

Function without ceremony

A picture of a game has none of the machinery of the mounted portrait. There is no elevation of a named sitter, no rank asserted and no still pose to hold. What it shows is a working animal inside a set of rules, which is why this catalogue files it beside racing rather than beside portraiture. Past that, the record names no players, no clubs and no result, and this page adds none of them.