This statue is a good portrayal of a heroic figure in military uniform and cloak. The left hand is missing (lost in battle) and on the base are a broken mortar and part of a gun carriage wheel. The horse would later be used for the statue of Hugh Gough It should be noted that this horse was not just a horse. It had been much admired when first exhibited in 1859. So much that as the Art Journal commented at the time, ‘Arab horse-dealers, with whom the love of the horse is a passion, and knowledge of their points of excellence a universal acquirement, are daily to be seen gazing at it’. The statue was originally erected in Kolkata in India, but was removed from its original site after independence. The statue was returned to England in 1950 and set up on a Hardinge family property at Penshurst. It was later relocated to a garden of the great-great-grandson of the portrayed. It was very special to meet the hospitable owner of the garden.
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