A harnessed coupe, seen from the rear

In 1879 the boy who made this drawing was about 14, and his years in Montmartre were still far off. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec grew up on his family's estates in the south of France, where his father, Count Alphonse, kept a full stable and lived for horses and hunting. Around this time two falls broke the boy's legs, one after the other, and the bones never healed properly, closing off the riding life his father led. So he drew it instead. Horses and carriages fill his earliest sketchbooks, observed with real attention to how a thing moves. Here he takes a harnessed coupe from behind, the closed carriage and its team caught in a few quick pencil lines. The museum in his home town of Albi keeps this sheet, part of the collection his mother gave after his death.