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by Tom Gurney Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on September 28, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
Degas Racehorses At Longchamp: Introduction
A group of racehorses and riders presses together on green ground. Near the centre, a dark-clothed person stands with their back to us, almost absorbed into the horses around them. Small flashes of bright riding colours break up the deeper browns and blacks. The scene is busy, but no race has begun. Edgar Degas's painting is catalogued in French as Conseils avant la course—Advice before the Race—in Michel Schulman's digital catalogue raisonné, number MS64. It is held in a private collection. [1][10]
This picture is not the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston painting titled Racehorses at Longchamp. It is Advice before the Race, catalogued as Schulman MS64, and no particular track is identified. The French title directs our attention to the time before competition, while the exact venue remains unverified. [1][2]
The work at a glance
ArtistEdgar Degas (1834–1917)
Catalogue titleConseils avant la course
English titleAdvice before the Race
Date1870s; precise date disputed
MediumOil on a parqueted wood panel, according to Schulman
The horses stand close enough that the viewer must separate bodies, heads and riders one by one. A dark horse in the central group anchors the image. To either side, other animals angle at slightly different directions, breaking any simple line of procession. The painted gathering seems ready to disperse, yet Degas gives us the unstable pause rather than the burst of a start. [1]
The figure seen from behind occupies a charged position. They face into the mounted group, their back closing the space between us and the riders. The catalogue's title suggests advice being given before the race, but it does not identify the person, the recipient or the words exchanged. A raised or outstretched arm can indicate a gesture within the picture; it cannot prove a conversation outside it. Degas makes the possibility of interaction visible without supplying a script. [1]
Small colours do much of the work of distinguishing the jockeys. Against dark horses and dark clothing, brighter caps and jackets catch the eye. These accents create a rhythm across the cluster: one sharp colour, then another, and another. They also tell us that the riders belong to the visual world of horse racing, where silks mark different entrants. We need no claim about a named race or owner to recognise their role. [1][3]
Behind them, green and yellow-green land rises across the upper part of the picture. It provides a broad setting without furnishing an exact map. There is no identifiable grandstand or legible sign in the reproduced image to pin the scene to Longchamp. The old web title may reflect a tradition of describing Degas's racing subjects generally, but here the catalogue's own name remains the better guide to the work. [1]
A dense painting on a small panel
At 32 × 40 cm, the object is modest in size. The panel is a little wider than it is high. Degas fits a surprisingly crowded group into this limited space, leaving no sweeping strip of empty track. Overlap becomes the picture's central device: horse against horse, rider against rider, standing person against mounted figures. It creates a sense of activity even though the animals have not yet accelerated. [1]
The catalogue describes the medium as oil and the support as a parqueted wood panel. “Parqueted” refers to a system of wooden supports attached behind a panel; a front-facing reproduction does not tell us when or why such a backing was added. It is therefore safer to state the catalogue's material description than to invent a conservation history. The painting's compact scale and overlapping forms are visible. Details of its physical surface, back and later treatment would require examining the object or a technical report. [1]
Dark forms concentrate around the central horses and the standing figure. The green ground and lighter hillside give these forms contrast. Bright spots of riding costume keep the centre from becoming a single mass. The arrangement makes the viewer's eye work in stages, picking out a muzzle, a rider, the dark coat, and then another horse. It is a constructed visual experience, although the casual gathering might at first suggest a quickly observed scene. [1]
Edges matter here as much as the centre. Horses and riders approach the picture's sides, making the scene feel larger than the panel can contain. The field behind them offers breathing space, but the near group fills most of what we see. Degas balances the sense of a broad racecourse with the close scale of people and animals waiting together. The resulting picture sits between landscape and group study. [1]
The work is signed at lower left according to the catalogue. That entry also gives its present location only as a private collection. A current owner name, public viewing location or exhibition schedule should not be guessed from earlier sales and loans. What matters for identifying this image is the combination of composition, catalogue number, dimensions and support, rather than the broad English phrase “racehorses at Longchamp.” [1]
Why Degas watched racing
Horse racing offered nineteenth-century artists a modern social setting as well as a study in animal movement. The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Manet/Degas exhibition guide describes racecourses near Paris as places of fashion, crowds, competition and speed. It notes that Degas began painting racing subjects in the early 1860s and often favoured the seconds before the start. That wider account helps explain why a gathering of jockeys could interest him as much as a galloping finish. It is context for MS64, not a report that the museum owns or has dated this specific panel. [3]
The National Gallery of Art's Degas at the Races exhibition assembled paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures to show the breadth of his attention to horses. Its catalogue lists MS64 among reproduced works, according to Schulman's bibliography, though the catalogue entry marks it as not exhibited in the Washington show. A reproduced picture is not the same as an object on a gallery wall. We can place this private painting within a researched subject while keeping its own exhibition status precise. [1][4]
Degas could bring several interests together at a track. A horse's changing posture challenged the artist to understand bodies in motion. Jockeys' contrasting silks supplied colour and social identity. A crowded course offered ways to crop a composition and interrupt a conventional central view. In MS64, those interests meet before the actual race: tension is carried by proximity, angles and the expectation that the group will soon move. [1][3][4]
This interest was sustained rather than confined to one painting. The NGA's The Races shows another group of mounted riders, but its arrangement, ownership and measurements are different. The Musée d’Orsay's At the Races includes horses and a carriage in a broad field. These comparisons show Degas revisiting the subject and changing the balance among horse, rider, onlooker and space. They do not make the pictures versions of a single object. [4][5][6]
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Schulman's catalogue labels MS64 circa 1876. Yet the same entry says that Ferdinand Bischoffsheim had owned it before April 1872, followed by Durand-Ruel in that month and Jean-Baptiste Faure in March 1874. If that ownership sequence describes this very painting accurately, it cannot first have been made around 1876. The catalogue gives both statements without an explanation in its public entry. Until they are reconciled, “1870s” is the most useful concise label, with the precise date expressly uncertain. [1]
Commercial image listings offer different early dates. Artothek describes the pictured work as Racehorses (Leaving the Weighing), circa 1871, while King & McGaw uses circa 1871–72. Those labels may draw on earlier catalogues or licensing metadata, but neither is a named owner of the painting. Their dates strengthen the reason to question “circa 1876”; they do not independently establish a single year. Likewise, “Leaving the Weighing” is a historical English title, not visual proof that we see a particular building or know the exact step in race procedure. [1][7][8]
The catalogue entry traces many later changes of hands, exhibitions and sales. It names a Christie’s London sale in 1991 and a Sotheby’s London sale in 2004 before the present private collection. Because its early chronology is internally contradictory, a full sequence of nineteenth-century ownership should be checked against original sale catalogues before being retold as certain. The later citations nonetheless show that scholars have studied and reproduced the image under changing titles. [1]
The catalogue's object page and concordance disagree about the work's Lemoisne number. Schulman MS64 identifies this oil painting without relying on that disputed cross-reference. [1]
Two works called racehorses at Longchamp
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston owns a separate oil titled Racehorses at Longchamp, accession 03.1034. Its image shows riders with much more open ground and sky. Boston dates that work 1871, possibly reworked in 1874, and its catalogue record concerns a canvas rather than this private wood panel. Michel Schulman lists the Boston work separately as MS87. The common English phrase hides two distinct compositions, supports and collection histories. [1][2][9]
The difference is visible even before reading labels. MS64 draws the viewer up against a tightly packed group with a standing dark-clothed person seen from behind. Boston's painting gives the horses and riders more space and an expansive sky. A visitor who remembers one image should be able to recognise that the other is a separate work. That visual check matters because an inaccurate web caption could easily carry Boston's date, size or location over to a private painting. [1][2]
The same caution applies to other Degas racing pictures. NGA The Races and Orsay At the Races have their own collection numbers and reproductions. The subject unites them; it does not merge their object identities. The close-packed riders and dark standing figure identify MS64 in the catalogue. [1][5][6]
Looking again
Begin at the standing person's dark back, then try to trace the horse immediately beyond them. Follow the colours of the jockeys across the group and notice how often one figure partly hides another. Finally, step back to see the green land behind the cluster. The composition makes a short interval feel full: animals hold still or shift position, riders gather, and a human gesture seems to pass among them. [1]
Degas did not need to show a full-speed race to evoke racing. In Advice before the Race, the close bodies and angled forms make preparation itself the event. The catalogue record identifies the private panel, while its conflicting dates leave part of the historical story open. Its precise track remains unnamed. Those limits sharpen the picture rather than diminish it: we can see how Degas built suspense from a group that has not yet started to run. [1][3]
Artworks directory
A selected index of documented works, combining owner records with entries sampled across Michel Schulman’s digital catalogue raisonné. It is not a complete catalogue. View the full catalogue
Share what you notice in Degas’s racehorses at longchamp.
Reader Insights
Close Looking
How do the overlapping horses and jockeys guide your eye?
Context
Which colours distinguish riders within the dark group?
Open Question
What can the image tell us about the scene without identifying a particular track?
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References
Michel Schulman, Degas digital catalogue raisonné, Conseils avant la course, MS64, exact photograph, title, private location, dimensions, medium, signature, date and provenance; the date and early history conflict internally. View source
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Racehorses at Longchamp, 03.1034, separate Boston composition, medium and owner date. View source
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Manet/Degas visiting guide, “At the Racecourse” section on Parisian racing culture and Degas's treatment of the moments before a start. View source
National Gallery of Art, Degas at the Races, scope and scholarship of the 1998 exhibition. View source
National Gallery of Art, The Races, 1942.9.18, distinct work. View source
Musée d’Orsay, At the Races, RF 1980, distinct work. View source
Artothek, Degas image catalogue, alternative Leaving the Weighing title, circa-1871 label and Christie's Images Ltd image credit. View source
King & McGaw, Racehorses (Leaving the Weighing), alternative circa-1871–72 dealer label. View source
Michel Schulman, Courses de chevaux à Longchamp, MS87, catalogue record for the different Boston picture. View source
Splash image: Edgar Degas, Advice before the Race, 1870s (exact date disputed), oil on parqueted wood panel. Private collection, Schulman MS64. Collection record. View source
Tom Gurney is an art history expert. He received a BSc (Hons) degree from Salford University, UK, and has also studied famous artists and art movements for over 20 years.
Tom has also published a number of books related to art history and continues to contribute to a number of different art websites. You can read more on Tom Gurney here.
by Tom Gurney
