Horses in a Meadow

Edgar Degas

National Gallery of Art

Two horses, one dark brown and one cream white, stand together to our right against a landscape with rolling, sage-green hills and a river or canal in this horizontal painting. Near us, facing our right in profile, the brown horse rests his head across the back of the white horse, who stands with its tail toward us. The horses stand along the ridge of a grassy hill that dips beyond us to a waterway crossing the width of the canvas. Several buildings line the shore closer to us. At least one building has parchment-white walls and a red roof, and another has peanut-brown walls with a darker, chocolate-brown roof. More rooflines are nestled between, and gray smoke wafts from several chimneys. Long, low boats float near the opposite shore. The land rises in a hill across the water with more horses or other animals in the far pastures. The scene is loosely painted, and the background is the most indistinct, so some details are difficult to make out. Touches of brown and green suggest trees and perhaps more trees and buildings along the hill in the distance. The ivory-white sky is touched with pale, petal pink and a hint of blue near the horizon. The artist signed and dated the work with dark paint in the lower right corner: “E. Degas 71.”