A BRONZE MODEL OF A PACING HORSE

Always a symbol of privilege and military advantage, the horse been a powerful image in art history since antiquity. The present bronze of a pacing horse traces its lineage at least as far back as the horse depicted in the over-life-size group of Marcus Aurelius on Horseback in Rome (today Capitoline Museums) which was probably first erected in a debated location in Rome circa 175 AD. The fact that it was one of the few large-scale bronzes from Antiquity which was not melted down was due to the fact that its actual identity was lost, and during the Middle Ages it was thought to represent the Emperor Constantine, the first emperor to convert to Christianity.
Many versions of the pacing horse exist in bronze, especially from the renaissance and later. However, the present horse is a particularly important example due to the fact that the engraved number on the proper left haunch indicates that it was formerly part of the French Royal Collection (see Les Bronzes de la Couronne, loc. cit.). First entering the collection in 1689 as a bequest from Charles Errard, Premier Directeur of the French Academy in Rome from 1666-1673 and then 1675-1683, the bronze is recorded in royal inventories of 1707, 1722, 1733, 1775, 1788 and finally 1791. It was ultimately part of the revolutionary dispersal of the Royal Collection when it was ceded to Jacques de Chapeaurouge (1744-1805) in 1796 along with 55 other bronzes.