A chaise breaks down but doesn't wear out
Date1892
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 on Bristol board
Dimensionssheet: 9 5/16 × 6 9/16 in. (23.7 × 16.7 cm)
Credit LineGift of Mrs. C. Lalor Burdick, 1992
Object number1992-23
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.
