Hand-painted in oil
About this Artwork
The handling relationship, failing
Every entry in this register that shows an animal being tacked, shod, led or held depends on an assumption: that the horse permits it. This is the only title in the whole catalogue that names a horse in conflict with a person. Others name animals fighting each other, or dogs fighting over a kill, or a bullfight. Here the opponent is the groom — the man whose entire job is the animal's daily handling — and the subject is the moment that job does not work. Read against the court portraits, where the whole argument is a large animal visibly governed, it is the same relationship with the outcome reversed.
What the record holds
The catalogue gives 1881 as the date of creation and a private collection as the location. No dimensions are recorded; the field is empty and this entry does not supply one. Impressionism is the style term and French the nationality attached to the painter. The record files the work under portraiture and male portraiture together with Animal Art > Horse, and the measured colour family of the image is ochre.
What this entry does not describe
The title names a conflict. It does not say what the animal did, and the catalogue holds no account of it. This register is written from the record, not from the image, and it stops where the record stops.
Sources
3 references- Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de — Getty ULAN
French painter, printmaker, and draftsman, 1864-1901
- Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec — Wikipedia
Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Montfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901), known as Toulouse-Lautrec (French: [tuluz lotʁɛk]), was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist, and illustrator. His immersion in t
- Toulouse-Lautrec - Horse Fighting His Groom, 1881 — Wikimedia Commons
High-resolution image of the work, hosted on Wikimedia Commons.
