Hollow, indirect cast. Head, ears, legs and tail have all been cast separately. The ears are a replacement, attached to the head with screws. A fracture caused by a high stress concentration during solidification is still visible through the gilding, most prominently around a plug in the horse’s back. The statuette is mercury-gilded.
Alloy leaded high zinc brass; copper with low impurities (Cu 70.01%; Zn 25.35%; Sn 0.22%; Pb 2.98%; Sb 0.09%; As 0.32%; Fe 0.50%; Ag 0.09%; Bi 0.05%).

R. van Langh in F. Scholten, M. Verber et al., From Vulcan’s Forge: Bronzes from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 1450-1800, exh. cat. London (Daniel Katz Ltd.)/Vienna (Liechtenstein Museum) 2005-06, no. 23 on p. 162

There’s a fracture around a plug in the horse’s back. The ears are replaced. The bronze is on its original ebony pedestal with tortoiseshell inlays.

…; sale collection Vieweg (Braunschweig), Berlin (R. Lepke), 18 March 1930, no. 52; …; sale The Hague (Van Marle & Bignell), ?1942;¹¹Note RMA.…; from the dealer J. Wiegersma, Utrecht, fl. 2,500, to the museum, with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, 1951

Object number: BK-16507

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt

Sculptures of horses have been a separate and important genre within bronze sculpture since the sixteenth century. They trace their origins to a few famous classical prototypes, among them the four monumental bronze horses on the Basilica di San Marco in Venice and the bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius in Rome.²²F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900, New Haven/London 1981, nos. 49 and 55. This gilt bronze trotting horse does not, however, stem directly from a classical example of this kind – it is, rather, a derivative of the large equestrian statues that Giambologna (1529-1608) made towards the end of his career for the most important rulers of his day, in which a number of his most senior assistants and important followers played a major role. As usual in Giambologna’s workshop, a great many variants of the model in statuette format were made over a prolonged period. The Amsterdam horse is in fact a variant, in mirror-image pose, of Giambologna’s equestrian statue of Cosimo I, which was made between 1587 and 1595.

When it was bought the Amsterdam horse was thought to be a work by an artist in the circle of Adriaen de Vries (1556-1626),³³R. van Luttervelt et al., De triomf van het maniërisme: Een Europese stijl van Michelangelo tot El Greco, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1955, no. 394. but Larsson disputed this attribution,⁴⁴L.O. Larsson, Adrian de Vries: Adrianus Fries hagiensis Batavus 1545-1626, Vienna/Munich 1967, p. 126. and Leeuwenberg subsequently catalogued the statuette as being from the Southern Netherlands.⁵⁵J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 201. However there are no good grounds for this either. Details like the large ears and flaring nostrils, the bared teeth, the curled upper lip, the shod hooves, the long tail and the long, loose flowing mane are, on the other hand, typical of the horses from the stable of Giambologna’s successor Pietro Tacca (1577-1640).⁶⁶C. Avery and A. Radcliffe, Giambologna, 1529-1608: Sculptor to the Medici, exh. cat. Edinburgh (Royal Scottish Museum)/London (Victoria and Albert Museum )/Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum) 1978-79, no. 168. An ungilded variant of the Amsterdam horse, possibly based on the same model, was with the dealer Daniel Katz in 2000 and sold two years later.⁷⁷J. Auersperg and K. Zock, European Sculpture, sale cat. London (Daniel Katz Ltd.) 2000, no. 27; sale London (Christie’s) 13 June 2002, no. 109. A pair of bronze horses ostensibly derived from the same model was sold in 2014 in New York.⁸⁸Sale New York (Sotheby’s) 30 January 2014, no. 349, which includes Anthea Brook’s qualifying statement, deeming it more plausible that the model was made by a northern follower of Giambologna’s Florentine school rather than by Pietro Tacca.

Pietro Tacca was closely involved in the making of Giambologna’s equestrian statues of Ferdinand I and Philip III dating from the early part of the seventeenth century, in which the horses are very like the Amsterdam statuette; the model for Ferdinand’s statue was probably supplied by Antonio Susini (active 1578-d. 1624). Tacca extended his experience of the genre in a number of small bronzes, including this one, giving the horses a less stiff, livelier pose. In 1619, with a statuette of Carlo Emmanuel on a rearing horse, and later with the monument for Philip IV, Pietro tackled the challenge that had been set by Leonardo – namely to achieve a rearing equestrian statue. This motif of rearing horses was then picked up and further elaborated in a group of pairs of horses that for a long time were attributed to Pietro Tacca,⁹⁹P. Torriti, Pietro Tacca da Carrara, Genoa 1975, p. 28; J. Auersperg and K. Zock, European Sculpture, sale cat. London (Daniel Katz Ltd.) 2000. but now appear to be by his son and successor Ferdinando.¹⁰¹⁰C. Avery and A. Radcliffe, Giambologna, 1529-1608: Sculptor to the Medici, exh. cat. Edinburgh (Royal Scottish Museum)/London (Victoria and Albert Museum )/Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum) 1978-79, nos. 164-65; C. Avery, _Giambologna: An Exhibition of Sculpture by the Master and his Followers from the Collection of Michael Hall, Esq.), exh. cat. New York (Salander O’Reilly Galleries) 1998, pp. 204-05. Thus the fascinating subject of the horse, the most popular theme in sculpture apart from human beings, runs like a leitmotiv through the careers of Giambologna and his followers.

The success of little equestrian statues like this in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is connected with the royal status of thoroughbred horses at this time. Owning a stud was comparable to owning a Kunst- or Wunderkammer. Horses were collected and exchanged as diplomatic gifts. Emperor Rudolf II even had his collection of Spanish horses housed in newly built stables in the wing of the palace in Prague where the art collections were displayed.¹¹¹¹F. Scholten et al., Adriaen de Vries 1556-1626: Imperial Sculptor, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Stockholm (Nationalmuseum)/Los Angeles (The J. Paul Getty Museum) 1998-2000, nos. 20 and 40. The popularity of equestrian statuettes among art collectors can also be gauged by the countless depictions of bronze horses in paintings of art cabinets.¹²¹²H.R. Weihrauch, Europäische Bronzestatuetten, 15.-18. Jahrhundert, Braunschweig 1967, figs. 546 and 555-58. A horse with a similar full, round rump, slender legs with small hoofs and a long mane and tail is shown in a drawing by the Flemish artist Stradanus (born Jan van der Straet, 1523-1605).¹³¹³See L. Berti, Il principe dello studiolo: Francesco I dei Medici e la fine del Rinascimento fiorentino, Florence 1967, p. 117, figs. 112-13. With thanks to Gordon Balderston for this reference. Stradanus made many drawings of the purebred horses in the Medici stables (cf. RP-T-1936-38), which were later published as prints. It is quite conceivable that Tacca was familiar with such drawings or prints by this artist, who had worked for his patrons, the Medici, only a generation before.

Monique Verber, 2005 (updated by Bieke van der Mark in 2024)
This entry was originally published in F. Scholten, M. Verber et al., From Vulcan’s Forge: Bronzes from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 1450-1800, exh. cat. London (Daniel Katz Ltd.)/Vienna (Liechtenstein Museum) 2005-06, no. 23

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 201, with earlier literature; J. Auersperg and K. Zock, European Sculpture, sale cat. London (Daniel Katz Ltd) 2000, under no. 27; Verber in F. Scholten, M. Verber et al., From Vulcan’s Forge: Bronzes from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 1450-1800, exh. cat. London (Daniel Katz Ltd.)/Vienna (Liechtenstein Museum) 2005-06, no. 23; sale New York (Sotheby’s), 30 January 2014, under no. 349

M. Verber, 2024, 'Pietro Tacca, Trotting Horse, Florence, c. 1620 - c. 1640', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035629