The Horse in Motion

1878

Eadweard Muybridge

Associated Names
Eadweard Muybridge

Artist, American, born England, 1830 - 1904

This is a series of twelve prints showing a horse in different positions, arranged in three horizontal rows of four. The prints depict a horse and its rider as they move through a galloping stride. Each frame captures a different stage of the gallop. In all the prints, the horse and rider are black silhouettes with no detail. The backgrounds of the photographs are divided into numbered grids, providing a reference for the motion. At the bottom, below the last row of photographs, are several lines of text.

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    albumen silver print

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Robert B. Menschel

  • Dimensions

    image/sheet: 10.2 × 20.6 cm (4 × 8 1/8 in.)
    mount: 13.3 × 21.6 cm (5 1/4 × 8 1/2 in.)

  • Accession Number

    2022.154.13

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Estate of Robert B. Menschel, New York; gift to NGA, 2022.

Associated Names

Inscriptions

printed, lower right on mount in black ink: Copyright, 1878, by MUYBRIDGE.; lower right: MORSE'S Gallery, 417 Montgomery St., San Francisco.; bottom center: THE HORSE IN MOTION. / Illustrated by / MUYBRIDGE. / AUTOMATIC ELECTRO-PHOTOGRAPH. / "SALLIE GARDNER," owned by LELAND STANFORD; running at a 1.40 gait over the Palo Alto track, 19th June, 1878. / The negatives of these photographs were made at intervals of twenty-seven inches of distance, and about the twenty-fifth part of a second of time; they illustrate consecutive positions / assumed in each twenty-seven inches of progress during a single stride of the mare. The vertical lines were twenty-seven inches apart; the horizontal / lines represent elevations of four inches each. The exposure of each negative was less than the two-thousandth part of a second.

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