Paardenhoofd 1834 - 1890

Editor: This is *Paardenhoofd*, or Horse Head, a pencil drawing by Charles Verlat, dating from sometime between 1834 and 1890. The soft lines and shading create a really serene, almost melancholic feeling. What stands out to you most when you look at this drawing? Curator: The horse, across many cultures, carries immense symbolic weight. It embodies power, freedom, nobility… but also, the burden of labor. Look closely at the horse’s eye here. Does it strike you as wild, untamed? Or something else? Editor: Hmm, something else… maybe resignation? There’s a weariness there. Curator: Exactly. Verlat captures a specific moment, freezing it in time and fixing the horse’s character within a visual vocabulary laden with history. Consider the classical equestrian statue, the horse forever caught mid-charge as the ultimate symbol of military might. What then does it mean to depict the horse, quite literally, “off duty”? Editor: It’s almost humanizing. Stripping away the heroic, leaving something more vulnerable. Curator: Precisely. The loose sketching style too. The soft shading evokes a sense of transience, as though the horse's presence might fade. The drawing feels more like an intimate study than a declaration. Does it remind you of any other artists that looked closely at animals and tried to find more than just utility or aesthetic form? Editor: Rosa Bonheur comes to mind. I see that now, how this simple sketch is a meditation on the complex relationship between humans and animals, echoing themes of dignity and empathy. Curator: Yes! So we are left questioning how and why we have coded and continue to code these images of nature. Editor: I never thought a simple drawing of a horse's head could hold so much. It makes you think about all the stories we project onto animals.