Dark, Dim, Dante-Like Solitudes
Date1905
Artist
Howard Pyle
(American illustrator, 1853–1911)
Illustration CitationThe One Hoss Shay with its Companion Poems, How the Old Horse Won the Bet & The Broomstick Train, by Oliver Wendell Holmes (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1892)
MediumInk and watercolor on paper
Dimensionscomposition: 4 5/16 × 2 9/16 in. (11 × 6.5 cm)
sheet: 7 1/8 × 6 3/16 in. (18.1 × 15.7 cm)
sheet: 7 1/8 × 6 3/16 in. (18.1 × 15.7 cm)
Credit LineGift of Willard S. Morse, 1923
Object number1923-208
On View
Not on viewClassificationsDRAWING
Label TextOliver Wendell Holmes was well known not just as a professor anatomy at Harvard but also as an author of light verse. The One Hoss Shay tells of a one hundred year old horse-drawn carriage that finally, and suddenly, breaks down. In How the Old Horse Won the Bet, a "poor forlorn old beast" amazes everyone with his speed in winning a race. The Broomstick Train attributes the flashing sparks of new electric trains to witches riding alongside them.
