Jun 20, 2025
The Start of the Race of the Riderless Horses
Artist: Horace Vernet (French, 1789–1863)
Date: 1820
Medium: Oil on canvas
Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY, United States
Description
Races of riderless horses were a highlight of Rome’s Carnival, held each February before Lent. Vernet’s painting depicts grooms struggling to restrain the horses before the start of the race - la mossa - in the Piazza del Popolo, which Goethe called "one of the finest sights that can be seen anywhere in the world." Vernet was certainly aware of his friend Gericault’s studies of the race when he made this one, which served a preparatory role for a larger composition acquired by the French Ambassador to Rome (now private collection).
