A Four-in-hand is any vehicle drawn by four horses driven by one person.''Oxford English Dictionary'' online accessed 20 August 2020 Driving large heavy carriages and private coaches drawn by four horses was a popular sporting activity of the rich after the middle of the 19th century.Alexander Mackay-Smith, Jean R. Druesedow, Thomas Ryder
''Man and the Horse: An Illustrated History of Equestrian Apparel'' P 100, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Simon and Schuster, New York. 1984 HRH Lowther 2005 horse driving

England's Four-in-Hand Driving Club was formed in 1856. Membership was limited to thirty and they all drove private coaches known as park drags made on the pattern of the old Post Office mail coaches but luxuriously finished and outfitted. A new group called the Coaching Club was formed in 1870 for those unable to join the club of 30. Other enthusiasts revived old coaching routes and took paying passengers. T. Bigelow Lawrence of Boston owned America's first locally built park drag in 1860.

Leonard Jerome Leonard Walter Jerome (November 3, 1817 – March 3, 1891) was an American financier in Brooklyn, New York, and the maternal grandfather of Winston Churchill. Early life Leonard Jerome was born in Pompey in Onondaga County, New York, on Novemb ...

took to driving coaches with six and eight horse teams to go to watch horse races. New York's Coaching Club was formed in 1875. Today Four-in-hand driving is the top discipline of

combined driving Combined may refer to: * Alpine combined (skiing), the combination of slalom and downhill skiing as a single event ** Super combined (skiing) * Nordic combined (skiing), the combination of cross country skiing and ski jumping as a single event ...

in equestrian sports. One of its major events is the FEI World Cup Driving series. The

four-in-hand knot The four-in-hand knot is a method of tying a necktie. It is also known as a simple knot or schoolboy knot, due to its simplicity and style. Some reports state that carriage drivers tied their reins with a four-in-hand knot, while others claim th ...

used to tie neckwear may have developed from a knot used in the rigging of the lines.

Four-in-Hand in Art

File:"Four in hand" LCCN2001699185.tif, "Four-in-hand"; lithograph (1887) by John Cameron File:Eakins, Fairman Rogers Four-in-Hand (May Morning in Park) 1880.jpg, ''

The Fairman Rogers Four-in-Hand ''The Fairman Rogers Four-in-Hand'' (originally titled ''A May Morning in the Park'') is an 1879-80 painting by Thomas Eakins. It shows Fairman Rogers driving a coaching party in his Four-in-hand (carriage), four-in-hand carriage through Philadel ...

'' (1879–80) by

Thomas Eakins Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins (; July 25, 1844 – June 25, 1916) was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator. He is widely acknowledged to be one of the most important American artists. For the length ...

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin ...

, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. File:Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 024.jpg, ''Alphonse de Toulouse-Lautrec Driving His Four-in-Hand'' (1880) by

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the l ...

, Musee du Petit Palais, France. File:J Chełmoński - Czwórka (1881).jpg, ''Four in Hand'' (1881) by

Józef Chełmoński Józef Marian Chełmoński (November 7, 1849 – April 6, 1914) was a Polish painter of the realist school with roots in the historical and social context of the late Romantic period in partitioned Poland. He is famous for monumental painti ...

, National Museum, Sukiennice, Kraków, Poland.

References

Carriages

Animal-powered vehicles {{Cat main, Horse-drawn vehicle This category is to list all animal-powered vehicles. Animal-powered transport Vehicles by fuel ...

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