Two Bulls Wearing a Yoke

A yoke is a different machine from a harness

The title names two bulls wearing a yoke. That is a specific and public piece of technology: a beam across the necks or horns of a pair, which transmits the pull through the animals' shoulders and works because oxen push into it from a standing start. Horses were harnessed differently, through a collar bearing on the chest, and the two systems suit different animals doing the same job. A register organised around the function of the horse has to include the alternatives, because the function is defined by what else could have done it.

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. Realism is the style term recorded and French the nationality attached to the painter. The categories are Animal Art and Animal Art > Horse — an animal heading that the title contradicts outright — and the measured colour family of the image is brown.

Why the contradiction is printed rather than fixed

A reader who sees the tag corrected silently learns nothing about how reliable the rest of the tags are. A reader who sees it flagged knows to weigh every other category heading in this catalogue at the same discount, and that is the more useful thing to give them.