Horse and Rider

Horse and Rider — Edgar Degas. c. 1890.

Medium: black chalk. Dimensions: Sheet: 29.5 x 24.3 cm (11 5/8 x 9 9/16 in.).

Collection record: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

Degas’s drawing Gentleman Rider alludes to the steeplechase, a fashionable race in which the riders were not professional jockeys but, instead, “gentlemen.” Here, Degas demonstrated his unceasing interest in the horse’s anatomy in motion, playfully revising the position of the animal’s hind legs, as he would a dancer’s. The top-hatted rider remains a ghostly shadow—it is clearly the horse rather than its rider who captured the artist’s imagination.

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.