A Rare and Important

16th Century Florentine
Bronze Horse Statuette

Leonardo’s Horse
(Gran Cavallo)

after Leonardo da Vinci’s Designs
for the Sforza & Trivulzio Monuments

c. 1580 - 1600
height 21.9 cm
with blackened traces of red and gold

“This model is known in two casts, the present bronze, and another statuette in the Caramoor Foundation for Music and Arts in Katonah, New York. The two bronzes are similar in all features, although the cast is rougher and livelier in the present version, and the patina is redder and more translucent in the Caramoor version.

The two bronzes depend from Leonardo da Vinci’s studies of horses, and particularly his designs for the unrealized Sforza and Trivulzio Monuments. The pose of the horse, with the right foreleg raised high, and the left hind foot raised but closer to the ground, is a stance found with frequency in Leonardo’s drawings, but it is otherwise uncommon in Renaissance images of horses. One should especially compare the bronze with several drawings by Leonardo at Windsor Castle (no.s 12,341; 12;343; 12;356v and 12,344r), all preparatory studies for the monuments. The flowing mane, the long snout, the high sharp cheekbones, and open mouth exposing the teeth are also features found in drawings of horses by da Vinci. Compare, for instance, the head of the present horse with the equine heads in Leonardo’s sheet of studies for the Battle of Anghiari (Windsor 12:326r).

The two bronzes are hollow cast; this is characteristic of Florentine bronzes after the middle of the sixteenth century. The patina, whose original reddish gold color is particularly vivid in the Caramoor version, further suggests a date in the second half of the sixteenth century. They were likely made in the circle of artists and connoisseurs that included Giambologna, Vecchietti and Borghini. The great Florentine sculptor of this time, Giambologna, loved this pose and featured it often in his equestrian statuary, both on a large scale (e.g. The Cosimo I Monument) and in statuettes. His patron Bernardo Vecchietti was one of the first collectors to love models and sketches, and he collected works by Leonardo. Another member of this circle, Raffaele Borghini wrote about Leonardo, “No one ever made more beautiful horses than he did” (R. Borghini, Il Riposo, Florence, 1584, p.371).

The bronze statuettes are closely based on the designs of Leonardo, possibly even after one of the master’s own wax models. The Goldschmidt bronze was featured in the exhibit, “The Genuis of Leonardo” at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Richmond in 1952, a show organized by Ludwig Heydenreich, one of the greatest Leonardo scholars. It was also published by W. R. Valentiner, then director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, in the catalogue of a Leonardo exhibition at the museum as a sixteenth century bronze cast after Leonardo’s model.”

Andrew Butterfield Fine Arts LLC www.andrewbutterfield.com

The Nut Brown Maid (A Country Girl)

“In August 1925, Clausen was commissioned to paint one of the sequence of large murals proposed for St. Stephen’s Hall in the Palace of Westminster. The theme, The English People gathering secretly to read Wycliffe’s English Bible, demanded extensive research and planning and went through two stages of approval by the Speaker of the House of Commons, before the designs could be painted. By June 1927 the canvas was completed and installed. Press reports unanimously regarded it as the most successful work in the series and on July 7th, Clausen was knighted for his services to art.”