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CHAPTER XXXVIII. 



THE painter's HORSE. 



Horses have been treated by painters, and also by 

 sculptors, in a very unhandsome way, and especially by 

 English so-called artists who continue to perpetuate the 

 conventional or stencil-plate animal in a style long since 

 forsaken by Continental draughtsmen. There are, of 

 course, several brilliant exceptions. The most usual faults 

 of conformation to be seen in horse pictures, are absurdly 

 small heads and extravagantly long hind-quarters, from 

 point of hip to point of buttock, as we may see in Figs. 

 647 and 648. The former is a sketch of an equestrian por- 

 trait, by the French artist Parrocel, of Louis XV. in his 

 youth. The latter is from Beauties and Defects in the Figure 

 of the Horse, by H. Aiken, who pubhshed it about eighty 

 years ago, and who described the subject of his work as 

 follows : " The animal from which this drawing was made, 

 is accounted one of the finest figures in England." He 

 must have had some misgivings about the dimensions of 

 the head and neck,; for he takes care to add that : " A 

 small head and neck in a horse are considered a great 

 beauty ; and in the original of this drawing, I think they 

 are the least I ever saw in proportion to the body." All 

 the saddle-horses of some English artists, among whom 

 was that unrivalled caricaturist, Mr. John Leech, have a 

 remarkably " good place for the collar " on their shoulders. 

 " The old masters " drew horses very incorrectly ; and yet 

 we find in the bas-refiefs of the Parthenon done over two 



