Peasants and Horses
c. 1860
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
32 × 52.2 cm (12 5/8 × 20 1/2 in.)
Classification
oil on canvas
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
35259
Art Historical Context
this oil painting, a peasant man stands amid a team of horses on a muddy rural track, one hand resting on the back of a luminous white horse while darker companions wait nearby. A large covered cart loaded with sacks dominates the left side, its wheels sunk in wet earth dotted with reflective puddles. Behind them rise simple thatched-roof buildings under a dramatic, cloud-filled sky that suggests recent rain and shifting light. Adolphe Schreyer’s *Peasants and Horses*, painted around 1860 in oil on canvas, brings this quiet moment of rural labor to life with careful attention to the animals’...