Herbert Haseltine’s
Unusual and
Spectacular
GOLD Horse Head Sculptures
H
orses have for centuries – millennia even – captured
the imaginaons of arsts across the world. From the 3000-
year-old chalk horse carved into the Uffington slopes of Oxfordshire,
to the wild-eyed steeds of the Parthenon, to Stubbs’
detailed studies, the form and movement of these powerful
and dignified animals have engaged both the arsts who strive
to capture them and viewers who appreciate their successes.
Among the most talented sculptors who dedicated his efforts to
horses was Herbert Haselne (1877-1962).
Son of landscape painter William Stanley Haselne, Herbert
developed his interest in horses in his youth. An American,
born in Rome, educated at Harvard and trained in art in Munich
and Paris, he was wordly and well-connected. His passion for
polo and hunng led him to horses as a subject for sculpture
when Aimé-Nicolas Morot suggested he try sculpture as a preparatory
exercise for his drawing and painng studies. His first
sculpture was a model of two mounted polo players in acon,
and invited acclaim at the Paris Salon of 1906.
Taking to sculpture, he connued with subject of polo, which
led to a growing reputaon and commissions from racehorse
owners and enthusiasts across the world. Among his patrons
were King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra of England and
Prince Schönburg-Hartenstein of Vienna. His commissions took
him as far afield as India where, through the suggeson of
Edwin Lutyens, the Maharaja Jam Saheb of Nawanagar in 1925
commissioned Haselne for a monument to the Maharajadiraj
Jam Sri Rawalji, founder of the House of Nawanagar.
It was in India that Haselne started to develop a project that
would take many years, and a very special patron, to complete:
the 1949 mul-gem and gold horse heads ‘Indra’ and ‘Lakshmi’.
EQUINE Art
AN EXCEPTINAL PAIR OF
MULTI-GEM AND
GOLD HORSE HEADS, 1949.
ESTIMATE £600,000–800,000.
These heads were modelled aer the Maharaja’s favourite stallion and
mare, drawing on 17th and 18th century Indian miniature painngs for
the decorave elements of bridle, collar and plumes. Influenced by his
interest in Egypan Art, Haselne pared back these heads to elegant
simplicity, the first versions executed in bronze.
However, Haselne envisioned a more refined and opulent incarnaon
of ‘Indra’ and ‘Lakshmi’, to be cast in gold and ornamented with precious
stones. Haselne finished most of the preliminary work on these
pieces soon aer his visit to India in 1938 but the great expense of
these materials meant that he had to wait for the right patron before
he could carry out his designs.
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