Carthorse

Painted in 1844 on paper and held in the Alte Nationalgalerie, 'Carthorse' is one of Menzel's early animal studies, reflecting the working horses that were ubiquitous in mid-nineteenth-century Berlin as the primary source of urban transport and freight movement. The carthorse — a heavy draught animal rather than the elegant cavalry horse of military subjects — situates this work in the everyday working life of the city rather than in official or aristocratic contexts. Menzel's democratic eye was equally at home with the carthorse on a Berlin street as with the cavalry charger in a historical painting, and his early animal studies show the observational directness that would characterise his work throughout his career. The depiction of working horses rather than cavalry chargers or racehorses was itself a choice that reflects Menzel's democratic subject range — the carthorse was as worthy of sustained pictorial attention as any nobler animal or grander subject.

The work on paper allows a direct approach, Menzel capturing the carthorse's heavy form with assured, economic strokes. The animal's musculature, characteristic draught-breed build, and harness details are observed with anatomical precision and practical understanding of a working animal.