Hand-painted in oil
About this Artwork
Draught was a job, and not only horses did it
The title names an ox. The record files the work under Animal Art > Horse. Those two statements cannot both be describing the same animal, and this register resolves the conflict in favour of the title, which is the primary evidence. What the entry is really about is the job rather than the species: pulling a cart is a function, and across the period this catalogue covers it was performed by oxen, mules and horses according to what a farm owned and what the ground demanded. Sorting a register by function rather than by animal makes that visible; sorting it by tag hides it.
What the record holds
The date of creation is 1884 and the location is the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine. No dimensions are recorded; the field is empty. Realism is the style term and Dutch the nationality attached to the painter. The categories are landscape, rural and the animal heading already discussed, and the measured colour family of the image is neutral.
A pair in the record
This register holds a second work by the same painter, also dated 1884, whose title also names a cart and an ox of a different colour. Two entries, one year, the same subject twice. The catalogue records the pairing; it says nothing about why it exists, and this entry does not speculate.
