The Horse in Motion: “Sallie Gardner,” owned by Leland Stanford; ridden by G. Domm, running at a 1:40 gait over the Palo Alto track
Artist
Eadweard Muybridge
(American, born England, 1830 - 1904)
DateJune 19, 1878
MediumAlbumen print
DimensionsImage and sheet: 4 1/8 × 7 7/8 inches (10.48 × 20 cm)
Mount: 4 1/4 × 8 1/2 inches (10.8 × 21.59 cm)
Mount: 4 1/4 × 8 1/2 inches (10.8 × 21.59 cm)
Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.
Object number2005.27.369
SignedOn mount recto, lower left, in black type: "Copyright, 1878, by MUYBRIDGE";
On mount recto, lower right, in black type: "MORESE'S Gallery, 417 Montgomery St., San Francisco".
InscribedOn mount recto, bottom, in black type: "THE HORSE IN MOTION. / Illustrated by / MUYBRIDGE. / Patent for apparatus applied for. / "SALLIE GARDNER," owned by LELAND STANFORD; ridden by G. DOMM, running at a 1.40 gait over the Palo Alto track, 19th June, 1878. / The negatives of these photographs were made at intervals of twenty-seven inches of distance, and about the twenty-fifth part of a second of time; they illustrate consecutive positions assumed / during a single stride of the mare. The vertical lines were twenty-seven inches apart; the horizontal lines represent elevations of four inches each / The negatives were each exposed during the two-thousandth part of a second, and are absolutely "untouched".
Markingsnone
On View
Not on viewCollections
DescriptionGrid of a series of 12 images (3 rows of 4) depicting a rider on horseback, in profile, as the horse trots. The frames are numbered 1 through 12 and there are series of vertical lines behind the horse with a numbered line above.Gallery LabelA wealthy businessman hired photographer Eadweard Muybridge to settle a bet: do galloping horses lift all four hooves off the ground at the same time? To answer this question, Muybridge constructed a track lined with 20 cameras, each connected to a wire. As the horse hit each wire along the track, a camera was triggered to capture an instant in time—a 1/1000 second—faster than anything the human eye could perceive. Arranged as a sequence, Muybridge’s photographs settled the bet (see the second and third images for proof) and became the building blocks for filmmaking.
Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, MO, 1998;
Given by Hallmark Cards, Inc. to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2005.
Given by Hallmark Cards, Inc. to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2005.
Mary V. Jessup Hood and Robert Bartlett Haas, "Eadweard Muybridge's Yosemite Valley Photographs, 1867-1872," California Historical Society Quarterly 42:1 (March 1963): 5-26; "California," New York Times (November 1, 1874): 2; "An Accused Murderer Acquitted," New York Times (February 18, 1875): 1; and Phillip Prodger, Time Stands Still: Muybridge and the Instantaneous Photography Movement (New York: Oxford University Press/Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, 2003).
Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information,
is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete.
Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a
particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum.
If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image,
please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.
