International studio (80.1925)

mceRHACioriAL

Ml©

TROTTERS ON THE GRAND CIRCUIT PUBLISHED BY CURRIER AND IVES

have but one purpose: to satisfy the same public even in a day of wits, an artist in living and, above

craving for representations of popular race horses, all, one of the last of the great dandies. The print

trotters, pugilists; of coaching parties, hunts and gives a very good idea of his immaculate dress and

fishing expeditions. The hard-riding, hard-drink- the carefully considered angle at which he was

ing squirearchy of that day, that is, the middle of wont to wear his glossy, wide-brimmed hat.

the eighteenth century, were usually well satisfied But is the thrill any the less keen because

with what was in reality little more than a colored identification of the figures in our own prints is

chart of a horse with his good points displayed as made out of the memory of man? For example,

in a diagram; and our American public, a century a dealer in American prints showed a little old

later, was on a par with the squires, artistically lady the lithograph of "Col. Kane's Coaching

speaking. Party," and she was able to identify each of the

Since all such prints are necessarily realistic members of the party,

in treatment, the layman, for whom they were Horse racing was the most popular subject of

originally made may still enjoy them, freed from these American prints, with shooting and, later,

all necessity for indulging in any artistic patter. pugilism not far behind. The horses themselves,

He may even go so far as to identify, if he can, their riders, their owners, as well as the races were

the horses, pugilists, owners of trotters and famous all depicted in them. The costumes of jockeys

sportsmen who figure in them. In England one and owners, especially when it indicates what the

identifies a duke or a prince; in America, the well-dressed man wore in the way of whiskers in

famous horses, Dexter or Fashion, the pugilist, the middle of the last century, are as strange to

Paddy Ryan, "The Trojan Giant," or Col. Kane, our eyes as the four-wheeler carnage or high-

the enthusiastic coachman. There is a thrill, in wheel sulky in which the former were seated,

looking at an English print, an aquatint, "The Then, as now, the owner of a famous horse did

Four-In-Hand Club, Hyde Park," to read that not scorn to break into the public prints on the

the famous Count D'Orsay drives the foremost back of his mount and so share in the reflected

team; for D'Orsay was the lively lover of Lady glory of its publicity.

Blessington—a brilliant horseman, a first-rate wit Shooting and fishing prints are somewhat

MARCH I925

four sixty-one