On your wall
Aquatint, Lithograph, and the Instant · The Instant
The Horse in Motion — 1878
Eadweard Muybridge, 1878 · cabinet card / collotype
What it is
The gallop, dissected: twelve frames proving all four hooves leave the ground — the photograph that ended a century’s argument.
Why it matters
A racing wager became the birth certificate of motion pictures; sport and science share this negative.
What to notice
Frame three — the “unsupported transit” the painters never dared paint.
The eye believed; the shutter knew.
Provenance
- Maker
- Eadweard Muybridge, 1878
- Era
- The Victorian Turf (1837–1901)
- Chapter
- The String at Full Stretch
- Medium
- cabinet card / collotype
- Made
- 1878
- Horse
- Sallie Gardner
- Source
- Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs (cph.3a45870) · cph.3a45870
Print master
The largest formats are printed from a master enlarged 1.3× from the surviving 4608×2856 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
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.