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The Race Track (Death on a Pale Horse)
Albert Pinkham Ryder, c. 1896–1908
Ryder based this painting on a horse race held in New York in 1888. A friend of the artist bet 500 dollars on the race and, after the horse lost, took his own life. The Cleveland Museum of Art says the composition is full of medieval symbolism.
Death appears as a skeleton on horseback with a scythe, which it uses to cut down the living. A snake, a sign of temptation and evil, crawls in the foreground.
Ryder was an intense man who worked on the painting for several years, and was very reluctant to part with it. It was made between about 1896 and 1908 and is about 70 by 90 centimetres without its frame.
From the museum record
| Artist | Albert Pinkham Ryder |
|---|---|
| Date | c. 1896–1908 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Size | Unframed: 70.5 x 90 cm |
| Museum | The Cleveland Museum of Art |
| Credit line | Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund |
| Accession number | 1928.8 |
| Licence | Open Access (CC0) |
Source: The Cleveland Museum of Art collection record. Facts such as dates, sizes and credit lines come from that record. The write-up above was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the museum record and standard references. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.
