Compositional Study of a Figure Group with a Rearing Horse
Pen-and-ink and chalk study: standing, kneeling and seated figures with a horse behind
A busy compositional study drawn in pen and brown ink with touches of red chalk, crowding many figures into the upper half of the sheet. At the right a group of seated women and children is gathered; toward the center a standing figure and kneeling and reclining figures are arranged, while at the left further figures kneel and lean forward. Behind the central group a horse rears up amid the throng, its neck and head raised. The lower half of the sheet is left almost blank, and an inventory number appears at upper right.
On this page
Crowded multi-figure group
Numerous nude and draped figures are massed together, standing, kneeling, seated and reclining. A cluster of women and children occupies the right, a standing figure and prostrate figures the center, and kneeling figures the left, all sketched rapidly in pen with searching contours.
Trial arrangement for a pictorial composition
The sheet reads as a first idea for a picture, the artist testing how to distribute a large group of figures across the field. The dense upper zone is balanced against an empty foreground, and forms overlap to suggest depth within the crowd.
Rearing horse within the group
Set among the figures behind the central action, a horse rears with its forelegs lifted and its neck and head thrown up. It is drawn summarily but reads clearly as a living, plunging animal woven into the composition.