D egas first began depicting horses in the 1860s. As a member of the prestigious Jockey Club in Paris, Degas was un habitué of the racecourses at Deauville and Longchamps, where he could study thoroughbred horses at close quarters. Although the artist was not an active participant himself, equestrian sports fascinated Degas throughout his life, as they allowed him to capture the full range of the horse’s movement in a wealth of poses.

The present model shows the horse in motion, jumping over an obstacle. The powerful physiognomy and musculature is counterbalanced with skilful handling of the horse’s delicate features, resulting in a molded cast that is particularly expressive.

Degas saw the advantage of photographs upon which he could rely when without a model to hand. The remarkable photographic studies by Eadweard Muybridge made during the 1880s provided Degas with a unique insight into the mechanics of movement for both sculptures and pastels of equine subjects (see fig. 1). Capturing the movement of the horse on film or showing a sequence of action through photography provided the artist with a new way of seeing a single moment in time and fully investigating the horse’s place within it.

Upon the artist’s death in 1917, over 150 pieces of sculpture were found in Degas’s studio and in 1918 a selection of circa 70 sculptures was authorized for casting by the A.-A. Hébrard foundry in Paris. The series of twenty casts of each model were lettered A to T in addition to one for the Degas family heirs and another to be retained by the foundry. The present work once belonged to the Smooke Collection of Los Angeles. Nathan and Marion Smooke were important American collectors of Degas bronzes.