Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Scene from the Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey
Edgar Degas French
Not on view
Degas’s approach to art was exploratory, and he habitually revised paintings after initially completing them. He produced this work, ambitious in its scale and the novelty of its subject matter, for the Paris Salon of 1866. Yet it betrays signs of his subsequent dissatisfaction, and he may have returned to it soon after the exhibition closed. Later, about 1880–81, he added the second riderless horse, partially obscuring the one behind it, which he also changed. About 1897 he reworked the canvas again, and at this time he adapted the original composition for a second painting (Basel Kunstmuseum). Degas reportedly told Katherine Cassatt (mother of the painter Mary Cassatt) about the present painting: "It is one of those works which are sold after a man’s death and artists buy them not caring whether they are finished or not."
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