Horses in a Meadow

Two horses — one dark brown, one cream white — stand close on the ridge of a grassy hill, the brown horse resting his head across the back of the white one, while below them a river crosses the canvas past buildings with red roofs and drifting chimney smoke toward low hills under an ivory sky touched with petal pink. Edgar Degas signed and dated the small canvas “E. Degas 71,” painting it in 1871 when the racing and horse subjects that would occupy him all his life were still new to him; the loose, almost sketchy handling of the landscape and the affectionate pairing of the two animals look back to his early training in the classical tradition rather than ahead to the ballet. The picture passed through the hands of Durand-Ruel and the singer Jean-Baptiste Faure before the National Gallery acquired it in 1995 through the Chester Dale Fund. The painting is held in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.