Aquatint, Lithograph, and the Instant
The String at Full Stretch
The sporting print at reckless speed — and the photograph that ended the argument.
1839–1900
The middle of the morning belongs to speed: Alken’s riders over hedges by moonlight, Herring’s champions, the Fores’s plates that were the nineteenth century’s action film; the American trotter at impossible extension, printed for every farmhouse wall; and then Muybridge, whose twelve frames of 1878 proved all four hooves leave the ground and settled a century’s wager. The painters kept time until the shutter learned to.
Why this era hangs here
The Victorian Turf
Britain, France & United States · 1837–1901
Herring’s official memory of the classic winners, the Fores’s plates, the American trotting lithographs, Degas at the rail, the Vanity Fair jockeys — and Muybridge’s shutter ending the century’s argument. Pre-1931 publication clears under the family’s U.S.-seller framework.
Collections
Alken, Herring, and the Fores’s Plates
The Sporting Print
The hunt and the chase, printed for every hall in the county.
1839–1870 · Britain
The Parlor Age at Speed
The American Trotter
Harness racing, sold to every farmhouse wall.
c. 1850–1890 · United States
Muybridge, 1878
The Instant
The wager the camera settled.
1878–1887 · United States
In this chapter
The Sporting Print
Steeplechasing — The Start
The field away over the first — Alken’s sporting England at full, reckless stretch.
The Sporting Print
‘Elis’, Winner of the St Leger, 1836
The champion in his loose box — Herring’s formula, repeated for decades because it was correct.
The Sporting Print
Fores’s National Sports — The Run In
The great mid-century sporting series at the finish — restored to museum grade.
The American Trotter
The Trotting Mare Nancy Hanks
The record-holder to her bicycle sulky — the American parlor’s favorite athlete.
The Instant
The Horse in Motion — 1878
Twelve frames proving all four hooves leave the ground — the photograph that ended a century’s argument.
The Instant
Animal Locomotion — the Gallop Grid
The stride laid out as a grid — motion made legible, one frame at a time.
The Cambridgeshire Stakes, Newmarket, 1849
The Cambridgeshire field pours down the Newmarket straight, Alken counting silks in the autumn light of 1849.
'Elis', Beating Colonel Peel's 'Slane', 300 Guineas, Newmarket
Alken has Elis take the measure of Colonel Peel's Slane over the Newmarket turf, 300 guineas riding on a length.
The Dead Heat for the Doncaster St Leger, with 'Voltigeur' and 'Russborough'
Voltigeur and Russborough lock together at the Doncaster post, Alken painting the dead heat before the run-off settled it.
The Sporting Print
Matilda, the winner of the Great St. Leger Stakes at Doncaster, 1827
Reeve's engraving after Herring carries Matilda's Doncaster win into the print-shop window, mane flat in the run-in.
The Sporting Print
The Belvoir Hunt, Full Cry
The Belvoir strung out in full cry, Alken catching horses flat and low over the shires grass.
The Sporting Print
The Belvoir Hunt, Jumping into and out of a Lane
Horses drop into a sunken lane and scramble out, Alken relishing the awkward geometry of a real hunting country.
The Sporting Print
The Belvoir Hunt, The Death
The run ends and the horses blow, Alken closing the Belvoir sequence with hounds baying at the kill.
The Sporting Print
Steeplechasers Jumping a Fence
Alken freezes the steeplechasers at the top of a fence, forelegs tucked and turf flying behind.
The Sporting Print
Two Steeplechasers Clearing a Wall, with Two Steeplechasers in the Middle Distance
Two steeplechasers rise at a stone wall with two more coming on behind, Alken's country hard and unforgiving.
The Sporting Print
Five Steeplechasers, with a River in the Middle Distance and a Red Flag on the Horizon
Five steeplechasers race a red flag on the skyline, Alken driving them across country toward a distant river.
The Sporting Print
Three Steeplechasers Clearing a Ditch
Three steeplechasers stretch over a ditch, Alken pinning the exact instant before the landing.
The Sporting Print
The Belvoir Hunt, The Meet
The field gathers for the Belvoir at the meet, Alken laying out horse, hound and hard frost in one cold morning.
The Sporting Print
Doncaster St. Leger - The Start
The St Leger field breaks at Doncaster in Alken's aquatint, a wall of silks let loose at the flag.
The Sporting Print
Extraordinary Steeple-Chase
Alken's comic-heroic steeplechase, horses and riders flung at every hazard the shires can offer.
The Sporting Print
Doncaster St. Leger - The Finish
Alken brings the St Leger home at Doncaster, the leaders drawing clear as the crowd rises along the rail.
The American Trotter
The Celebrated Trotting Mares Maud S. and Aldine
Maud S. and Aldine paired to Vanderbilt's wagon at Morrisania, two record mares stepping as one.
The American Trotter
Trotting Cracks at Home, a Model Stable
Currier & Ives take the trotting cracks home to a model stable, Thomas Worth's gentlemen fussing over their harness stock.
The American Trotter
Fast Trotting in the West - Lucy and Goldsmith Maid
Lucy and Goldsmith Maid head to head out West, Currier & Ives running two great mares stride for stride.
The American Trotter
A Good Send Off - Goldsmith Maid, American Girl, Lucy and Henry
Four cracks get a good send-off at Fleetwood Park, Currier & Ives catching the moment the field breaks even.
The American Trotter
Champion Trotting Stallion Smuggler
Smuggler, the champion stallion of the Milton stud, shown at his trot in a Currier & Ives sheet.
The American Trotter
American Trotting Stud - Mambino Pilot, Flora Temple
A breeder's sheet of the American trotting stud, Currier & Ives lining up the sires that made the gait.
The American Trotter
The Celebrated Trotting Mare Lucy, Passing the Judges' Stand
Lucy sweeps past the judges' stand at Buffalo to take the fourth heat, Currier & Ives holding her at the wire.
The American Trotter
Celebrated Trotting Mare Lady Thorne
Lady Thorne, once the Maid of Ashland, drawn at her long low trot in a Currier & Ives sheet.
The American Trotter
The Celebrated Trotting Mare Flora Temple, Driven by James D. McMann
Flora Temple flying to McMann's hands, the bobtail mare who first broke 2:20 laid out at speed.
The American Trotter
The Grand Trotting Stallion Bonesetter
Bonesetter, son of the Brooks Horse, shown to the sulky as a stud sheet for the harness men.
The American Trotter
Champion Trotting Queen Alix
Alix, the trotting queen of 1893, laid flat to the sulky in her 2:07 record at Washington Park.
The American Trotter
The Celebrated Trotting Mare Goldsmith Maid Driven by Budd Doble
Goldsmith Maid in Budd Doble's hands at Buffalo, the queen of the trotters beating Lucy in record heats.
The American Trotter
'Trotting Cracks' at the Forge
The trotting cracks pull up at the forge, Currier & Ives resting the road horses under the smith's lamp.
The American Trotter
'Trotting Cracks' on the Snow
Sleighs and trotting cracks fly over packed snow, Currier & Ives making a winter sport of the road-wagon match.
The Instant
Animal Locomotion, Plate 614
Muybridge lays a galloping horse out in serial frames on Plate 614, the stride finally taken to pieces by the camera.
The Instant
Animal Locomotion, Plate 630
Plate 630 runs the horse through its paces in a strip of exposures, motion pinned like a specimen.
The Instant
Animal Locomotion, Plate 632
Plate 632 sets a ridden horse through the sequence, rider and mount dissected in the same instant.
The Instant
Animal Locomotion, Plate 625
Plate 625 sets the horse's gait in a grid, Muybridge proving what no eye at the rail could ever hold.
The Instant
Animal Locomotion, Plate 635
Plate 635 closes the horse series, Muybridge's camera settling forever the argument over the flying gallop.
The Instant
Animal Locomotion, Plate 633
Plate 633 catches the horse and rider frame by frame, the whole gallop laid bare in a row of stopped time.
The Instant
Animal Locomotion, Plate 628
Plate 628 walks the horse frame by frame, Muybridge cataloguing the machinery of the walk.
The Instant
Animal Locomotion, Plate 629
Plate 629 holds the horse mid-stride across the sequence, the instant the turf never lets you see.
The Instant
Animal Locomotion, Plate 631
Plate 631 breaks the canter into its parts, Muybridge's grid making a science of the stride.