Christian Adolf Schreyer (1828–1899) painted this dramatic scene of galloping horses pulling a wagon through the Wallachian countryside (now part of Romania). William Unger’s etching, made about 1880, was selected for exhibition at the Cincinnati Exposition in 1888 in an enormous display of past and present graphic art curated by Sylvester R. Koehler, the Smithsonian’s Graphic Arts Curator. Koehler was also a prolific author, editor, and advocate of contemporary etching. He published Unger’s etchings in Foreign Etchings (1887) and in his journal, The American Art Review.
Schreyer’s paintings of horses and peasant life remain popular today. The Chase, his painting showing Arab horsemen dashing through a field, sold for $464,000 in 2005.
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