On your wall
Conformation and the Parade Ring · At the Rail
Jockeys and Race Horses
Edgar Degas, oil on canvas, c.1885 · oil on canvas
What it is
Jockeys sit their horses at odd angles to one another on a pale strip of turf, waiting rather than racing.
Why it matters
Degas painted racing almost entirely out of its dead time — the parade, the wait, the turning — because that was where his eye found the picture, not in the blur of a finish.
What to notice
how none of the horses face the same direction, a crowd of separate attentions rather than one shared event.
The picture happens before the race does.
Provenance
- Maker
- Edgar Degas, oil on canvas, c.1885
- Era
- The Victorian Turf (1837–1901)
- Chapter
- The Yard Wakes
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Made
- 1885
- Source
- Barnes Foundation (BF572)
Print master
The largest formats are printed from a master enlarged 1.46× from the surviving 4096×3199 scan by AI enhancement (Claid smart-enhance), prepared for the considered detail of a print viewed at distance. The source record above is unchanged — the enhancement serves the wall, not the archive.
Rights: CLEAR. Public domain — U.S. 95-year rule (published 1930 or earlier). Gated by the work’s own year of publication. Cleared by registry on 2026-07-20.
Format
The full-resolution, color-managed file — restored honestly, yours to print and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan supports sizes up to 24x36" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
More from the Stable Wall
Elsewhere in the family
- The Links — the other morning religion.
- Painted Lineage — the bloodline, beside the family line.
- Painted Earth — home ground as a period map.