Paard bij een ploeg 1763 - 1804

This small print, "Horse by a Plough," was made by Johann Friedrich Gottlieb Unger. It is a seemingly simple scene of rural life, yet it pulls at something deeper. The horse, stoic and harnessed, stands beside a plough, tools of labor. The horse as a symbol is not new; it appears in antiquity, in tapestries, and in countless paintings. It is a symbol of power, of labor, and of the natural world tamed. Consider the ancient Roman depictions of horses, emblems of imperial might and conquest. Here, however, the horse is set within the mundane, a beast of burden. The plough itself, a tool of cultivation, mirrors our impulse to civilize, to control nature’s raw potential. The image evokes the cyclical nature of life, the endless toil, a rhythm embedded in our collective memory. The viewer is drawn into the silent, psychological drama of labor and existence.