Degas’ determination to challenge accepted artistic conventions is reflected in the composition of this drawing, focused intently on the upper torsos and heads of the two jockeys. The sheet is typical of his approach to equestrian art, seeking highly original compositions and capturing fleeting moments.

Degas’ lifelong engagement with equestrian themes began in the 1860s and spanned the whole of his career, producing some fifty paintings and hundreds of drawings devoted to jockeys and racehorses. Rather than depicting the instant of gallop, he preferred the nervous suspension before or after a race, concentrating on the balance of the mounted rider and the interplay between horse and man.

The present sheet, showing two jockeys in bust-length profile, belongs to this body of preparatory work but is distinguished by its execution on blue paper, a support rarely used by Degas. It finds a close counterpart in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, which preserves another blue-paper drawing, Fallen Jockey (study for “Scene from the Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey”), c.1866 (Fig. 25).

It is therefore highly likely that the present drawing represents a previously undocumented preparatory study for Scene from the Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey, executed around the same time as the Washington sheet. Both works can be recognised as preparatory studies for figures in Edgar Degas’ celebrated painting, begun in 1866 and reworked circa 1896–1898, National Gallery of Art, Washington (figs. 22–24). In the Washington drawing, Degas isolates the prone figure of the fallen rider, whereas in the present example he records the upright jockeys in conversation before the race, a configuration that anticipates the mounted pair at the upper left of the final canvas.

When the later painting Jockeys Before the Race (Fig.20) was exhibited at the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition in 1879, it was precisely its abrupt cropping and depiction of a fleeting, transitional moment that surprised contemporary audiences. These qualities awkward parallel the present sheet. Indeed, the similarities between the jockey here and the rider depicted in the Barber Institute painting are striking, and it is well documented that Degas often returned to earlier drawings, reworking and reusing them as sources for his later racecourse and jockey compositions.