Sculptures

1.14 Sculptures

In Section 1.3, I define the concept of an equestrian statue. Many sculptures not meeting all the criteria for an equestrian statue are, however, so interesting and noteworthy that I want to pay attention to them, not only in Part 2 of this book, but also more specifically here. 

I have distinguished a number of categories of equestrian sculptures:

1.14.1 Equestrian sculptures as part of a funerary monument

These sculptures have a long history. The Scaliger Tombs, a group of five monuments in Verona (Italy), are outstanding examples of Gothic art, dating from the fourteenth century. Three tombs are topped with stone equestrian sculptures of members of the ruling family in Verona from the thirteenth to the late fourteenth century: the Scaliger family (see Section 2.1.3).

The oldest equestrian sculpture, dating from the early fifteenth century, is in the Frari Basilica in Venice; the painted wooden statue by Jacopo della Quercia representing Paolo Savelli. Also in this city are four funerary monuments of condottieri with equestrian sculptures in gilded wood in the Basilica di San Giovanni e Paolo, and one in the Church of St Stephen (see Section 2.1.3).

Bartolomeo Colleoni, well known for his equestrian statue in Venice, has a splendid funerary monument in Bergamo (Italy), with an equestrian sculpture of gilded wood.

Richard Westmacott sculpted the dramatic marble monument of a dying Ralph Abercromby, falling dying from his horse, erected in St Paul’s Cathedral in London. The same cathedral houses the Wellington monument, with the bronze equestrian sculpture by John Tweed (1912) after a design by Edward Stevens.

There are examples of funerary monuments that qualify as equestrian statues. For example, in Brooklyn Connecticut, the statue of Israel Putnam (see Section 2.11.2), in the National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, the statues of John Dill by Herbert Haseltine and Philip Kearny by Edward Clark Potter (see Section 2.11.7) and in Rome, the equestrian statue of Anita Garibaldi (see Section 2.1.6).

The Washington monument in Richmond, Virginia, is topped by George Washington’s equestrian statue. It was designed to be his tomb, but he was buried at his estate in Mount Vernon in accordance with his will.

1.14.2 Saints

Two saints have quite frequently been depicted riding a horse: Saint George and Saint Martin. Did they ever exist? Many people assume so, but not in the roles in which they are portrayed; Saint George as the rescuer of a princess by killing a dragon, and Saint Martin as the officer sharing his cloak with a beggar. This is the reason for me to categorize them as sculptures and not as statues.

Saint George, patron saint of England, of Moscow and of Cáceres in Spain, was an early Christian martyr, who during the Middle Ages became a paragon of valour and selflessness. Nothing of his life or deeds can be established, but legends about him as a warrior saint became popular, such as the story of his rescuing a Libyan king’s daughter from a dragon and then slaying the monster in return for the king’s subjects promising to be baptized.

In all the sculptures I know, Saint George is shown slaying the dragon, and in most cases riding a rearing horse that is supported by the saint’s lance or the struggling dragon.

Some of these sculptures are worth mentioning specifically.

An exquisite portrayal of Saint George was cast in 1373 by two Romanian sculptors, the brothers Martin and George of Cluj. It was the first known equestrian sculpture to decorate an open space. The original is in the National Gallery of the Czech Republic in Prague. The most beautiful copies I have seen are in the courtyard of Prague Castle and in Cluj-Napoca, the hometown of the sculptors.

Saint George is looking down at the dying dragon with calmness, if not to say serenity, in contrast with the effort and dynamism the characters are involved with. Even the horse is flexing its neck to look at the defeated victim.

A unique sculpture of Saint George is the one by Kompatscher and Winder in Zagreb. It shows Saint George not as usual during his fight with the dragon, but in contemplation after his victory and paying respect to the defeated animal. He looks down, as does his horse.

The Saint George in New York City is certainly one of the most spectacular examples in the world. It is a sculpture by Zurab Tsereteli, donated by the Soviet Union to the UN. The huge sculpture in the UN gardens is entitled Good Defeats Evil. St George on a rearing horse slays the dragon with a spear: so far nothing new, but the body of the dragon is what makes it so special. The dragon is partly made up from pieces of scrapped US Pershing and Soviet SS-20 nuclear missiles.

The Saint George by Adrian Jones in London is a war memorial in Hyde Park, erected by the Cavalry of the Empire in memory of comrades who gave their lives in war. The sculpture shows St George, in full Gothic armour, sword held high theatrically above the dead dragon, ‘to signify to the world that the dragon is slain and the season of his tyranny at an end’.

The Saint George sculpture in the Nicolaiviertel (Nicholas’ quarter) in Berlin by August Kiss shows in a remarkably lively way the battle between the dragon on one side and the horse and man on the other.

A rather special equestrian piece is the highly ornate wood sculpture of Saint George in the Stokyrkan (Church of St Nicholas) in Stockholm, with a bronze copy in the neighbourhood of  the building (see Section 2.5.2).

The second saint to be often portrayed on horseback is Saint Martin of Tours. In the same way as Saint George is always shown fighting the dragon, Saint Martin is frequently depicted as a man on horseback sharing his cloak with a beggar.

Old equestrian sculptures of Saint Martin, the patron saint of soldiers, are often installed in churches, for example a painted stone sculpture dating from the fourteenth century in the Regensburg Cathedral in Germany, and a stone sculpture dating from around 1300 in Lucca, Italy (see Section 1.4.2). St Martin’s Cathedral in Bratislava (Slovakia) has an attractive baroque lead statue of the saint by Georg Rafael Donner (1744).

Carl Milles (1955) sculpted another beautiful Saint Martin in Kansas City (US), with a copy in Stockholm (see Section 2.5.2).

1.14.3 Memorials

Equestrian sculptures have often been used as part of memorials.

Many of them are monuments commemorating World War I, the last war in which horses were still heavily used. We find them in a number of European countries.

The war memorial in Galashiels, Scotland, by Thomas J. Clapperton, a native of the town, shows a border freebooter from the seventeenth century. The memorial, unveiled in 1925 by Field Marshal Douglas Haig, was built to commemorate the 635 men from the town killed during World War I; a strikingly large proportion of the pre-war population of 14,500.

Equestrian sculptures commemorating famous cavalry troops from the region can be found in Finland, Germany, Poland, Russia, Ukraine and the UK. Boer War memorials can be found in Australia (Adelaide and Brisbane) as well as in the UK.

Some other notable memorials include:

  • The Shaw memorial in Boston, Massachusetts. A high relief, and one of the best works of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, in memory of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Colored Regiment, the first unit in the Union Army made up of free black soldiers in the Civil War (see Section 11.12).
  • In Székesfehérvár (Hungary), a proud statue of a naked rider with a sword by Pál Patzay, in memory of the bloody battle of Limanowa-Lapanów in 1914 (see Section 2.8.2).
  • In Gennep (The Netherlands), a war memorial showing the Good Samaritan sitting on horseback and holding a wounded traveller in his arms, an impressive equestrian sculpture by Jac Maris (1953).

1.14.4 Characters from literature

By far the most popular hero on horseback from literature is Don Quixote, often accompanied by Sancho Panza on his donkey. Equestrian sculptures of this hidalgo, created by the novelist Miguel de Cervantes, can be found in many places: from Bulgaria to Japan, from Cuba to the US, and of course in Spain. In Madrid, we find the huge Cervantes monument with the equestrian sculpture by Lorenzo Coullaut Valera (see Section 2.2.6).

From the same sculptor and his son Federico is another equestrian sculpture, located in the Parque del Buen Retiro in Madrid. It is a charming monument dedicated to the Alvarez Quintero brothers; Spanish dramatists whose lifelong collaboration resulted in more than 200 plays.

Other equestrian sculptures of epic heroes include David of Sassoun, who drove Arab invaders out of Armenia; Manas, the eponymous hero of the epic Kyrgyz poem; Gesar, the Tibetan king from the longest epic in the world; Folke Filbyter, the tragic scorned father in Folkungaträdet by the Swedish writer Verner von Heidenstam (see Section 2.5.2) and Bendigeidfran, the king of Britain in Welsh mythology (see Section 1.10.2).

1.14.5 Equestrians not qualifying as statue, because they are not free standing or are not of a monumental size

Some noteworthy sculptures could not be categorized as equestrian statues, as it is not possible to walk around them (for instance because they are placed in a niche or because they are high reliefs) or they are not of monumental size.

The most remarkable sculptures in this category are Der Bamberger Reiter in Germany (see Section 2.7.4), Oldrado de Tresseno in Italy (see Section 1.4.2) and Louis XII and Duc Antoine in France (for both see Section 1.4.3).

Other sculptures worth mentioning are Charles the Great by Agostino Cornacchini (see Section 2.1.8) and Constantine I by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, both in the narthex of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Lodewijk van Gruuthuse by G. Pickery in Bruges (Belgium), and Ulysses S. Grant and Abraham Lincoln by Thomas Eakins and William O’Donovan (1895) in Brooklyn, New York (see Section 2.11.12).

1.14.6 The equestrian sculpture in art

Given the great number of equestrian sculptures not portraying a specific person, the combination of man and horse has apparently been an attractive challenge for many sculptors throughout the ages.

The many high reliefs from Greek and Roman antiquity, showing equestrian warriors, strictly speaking should not even be categorized as equestrian sculptures. Nevertheless, they are remarkable for their unbelievable craftsmanship.

Some outstanding examples in the Vatican Museum in Rome are the base of the column of Antonius Pius (AD 161), showing a simulation of a cavalry battle during the emperor’s funeral, and the porphyry sarcophagus for the mother of Constantine (AD 335), decorated with scenes of battle, with armed cavalry bearing down on various barbarian prisoners.

Large dual equestrian sculptures are sometimes placed at the entrance of a public building, a park or a bridge, to give a place some ‘grandeur’.

 A few good examples are:

  • Castor and Pollux by Sangiorgio Abbondio in Turin, guarding the entrance to the Palazzo Reale.
  • Arts of War, Sacrifice and Valor. Two monumental sculptures by Leo Friedlander on the eastern end of the Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington DC.
  • Horse Tamers, at the entrance to Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York, by Frederick MacMonnies.
  • The magnificent pair of sculptures in front of the National Museum in Berlin: the Mounted Amazon Attacked by a Panther, by August Kiss, and Man Fighting a Lion, by Albert Wolff, with replicas in Philadelphia.

Some examples of notable single sculptures include:

  • The Amazon, by Louis Tuaillon in Berlin.
  • Die Walküre, by Stephan Sinding (1910) and Battle with a Serpent, by Thomas Brock (1880), both in Copenhagen.
  • Der Reiter, in Hamburg, by Hermann Hahn (1908) and Licht und Kraft, in Coburg, by Hans Klett (1913), both in Germany.
  • Trade and Exploration, in Barcelona. A woman on top of a strong horse, by Frederic Marès.
  • Physical Energy, by George Frederic Watts in Cape Town (1902).

A book about equestrian statues would not be complete without paying attention to the intriguing equestrian sculptures by Marino Marini (1901–1980). Marini was a famous Italian sculptor, known for his highly stylized equestrians. As a matter of fact, his equestrian sculptures were an important inspiration for me to write this book. Pictured here is a beautiful wooden sculpture in the Kröller Müller Museum in Otterlo (The Netherlands), the first work by Marino Marini I ever saw. This sculpture made a deep impression on me.

See also his sculpture L’angelo della Città, in the Guggenheim Collection in Venice in Section 2.1.8..

This overview would not be complete without mentioning the four Horse Tamers. Sculpted by Peter Clodt von Jürgensberg and installed at the Anichkov Bridge in St Petersburg in 1851. Like the Horse Tamers in Brooklyn, it is strictly speaking not even an equestrian sculpture, as the tamers are not sitting on the horses to be tamed. However, they are brilliantly designed, and unique and outstanding symbols of mankind in its aspiration to submit to nature (see Section 2.9.3).