Change of Ownership (The Stampede; Horse Thieves)

Change of Ownership — subtitled The Stampede or Horse Thieves — is one of Remington's most dramatic nocturnal subjects from his late period, depicting a night raid by horse thieves driving stolen animals in a thundering stampede. He was deeply interested in the nocturnal paintings he had encountered in French and American Impressionism, and his late career attempts at moonlit and firelit scenes represent genuine experimental ambition beyond his characteristic illustrative mode. The chaos and speed of a horse stampede gave him a subject ideally suited to his interest in dynamic movement, here rendered in the dimly lit terms of a night scene. The work is at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

The nocturnal palette — deep blues, blacks, and cool grey highlights — is unusual for Remington and shows his late Impressionist experiments. The horses are rendered with the confident anatomical knowledge of his entire career, their forms emerging from darkness. Movement is conveyed through diagonal arrangement and blurred contours.