This concept first pronounced by Metzinger in βsince considered a founding principle of Cubism βwould soon find its way into the foundations of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics ; the fact that a complete description of one and the same subject may require diverse points of view which defy a unique description.
The painting was owned by the poet Joseph Houot known as Jacques Nayral. It was presumably bought by a Danish collector in Purchased by Danish physicist Niels Bohr. It is now in the Royal Collection of Paintings and Sculpture at the museum. As the title indicates the painting represents a woman and a horse. The rather elegant woman wearing only a pearl necklace and the horse are immersed in a landscape with trees and a window in the 'background' , a vase, with fruits and vegetation in the 'foreground' clearly taken from the natural world.
David Cottington wrote:. In the absence of more evidence than such brief snatches of commentary in wide-ranging salon reviews can provide, we can only speculate as to whether Metzinger intended, or its initial audience read, the provocative juxtaposition in this painting of a naked woman with horse, and of natural with cosmetic adornment, as a follow-up to Tea Time 's essay on sensation and the viewer's apprehension of it.
Through its fussy geometry we can discern a nude woman, her limbs and upper torso picked out in sensuous chiaroscuro, perched side-saddle on a studio prop-horse and stroking its mane visible top right. The nude woman is in fact not perched side-saddle on the horse. As others have pointed out Antliff and Leighten , [5] and as emerges upon close examination, the nude woman is seated on what appears to be a rectangular block or cube, perhaps a model's pedestal visible to the left.
The horse occupies the upper right-hand quadrant as if observed from above. Its head is turned toward the monumental nude while she strokes the horse's right ear with her left hand.
