Aquatint, Lithograph, and the Instant · The Instant
Animal Locomotion, Plate 629
Eadweard Muybridge, collotype, 1887 · collotype
What it is
Plate 629 holds a horse mid-stride across a run of exposures, isolating the instant no spectator at the rail could ever fix with the naked eye.
Why it matters
Muybridge's whole project rested on this claim — that the camera could see what the human eye compressed into a blur, and prove it plate by plate.
What to notice
The single frame where the horse's legs are fully gathered, a position that reads almost like a fall.
The eye edits; the plate refuses to.
Provenance
- Maker
- Eadweard Muybridge, collotype, 1887
- Era
- The Victorian Turf (1837–1901)
- Chapter
- The String at Full Stretch
- Medium
- collotype
- Made
- 1887
- Source
- University of Pennsylvania / DPLA
Print master
The largest formats are printed from a master enlarged 3× from the surviving 1007×800 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 11x17" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
More from the Stable Wall
Steeplechasing — The Start
‘Elis’, Winner of the St Leger, 1836
Fores’s National Sports — The Run In
The Trotting Mare Nancy Hanks
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.