Artilleryman Saddling His Horse

The moment before the work

The title describes an act of maintenance: an artilleryman putting a saddle on his horse. That is neither a charge nor a portrait. It belongs to the small class of pictures in this register that catalogue the labour around the animal rather than the animal in use — tacking up, shoeing, feeding, leading out. In these the horse's job is to stand still and be handled, and the human figure is doing the acting.

What the record holds

The catalogue gives 1879 as the date of creation and the Musee Toulouse-Lautrec in Albi, France, as the location. The dimensions are 50.5 x 37.5 cm. Impressionism is the recorded style and French the nationality attached to the painter. The work is filed under portraiture, male portraiture and Animal Art > Horse, and the measured colour family of the image is yellow.

Military, but not a battle picture

The uniform in the title places the scene in an army, and it would be easy to file the work with the cavalry entries in this register. Function argues against it. Nothing is being attacked, ridden or reviewed; a piece of tack is being fitted. This register groups by what the animal is doing, and here it is doing nothing at all.