Lot Essay
The terracotta was tested by the Oxford Research Laboratory (sample 481e38) in 1988 and was estimated to have been fired between 350 and 540 years ago.
In Vasari's Vita of Gianfrancesco Rustici, he refers to the fact that the artist 'learned many things from Leonardo, but especially to make horses, which delighted him so much, that he made them of terracotta and of wax, in the round and in bas-relief. . . Of his terracottas of horses with men above and below, there are many in the houses of the citizens of Florence. These, since he was courtesy personified, he gave to various of his friends'. In 1928, Charles Loeser (op. cit., pp. 266-271) published four groups of fighting horsemen corresponding to Vasari's description, and attributed them to Rustici. The present group, is a fifth, close in composition to Loeser's Plate IIIc, now in the Loeser Collection in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, but formerly in Casa Ridolfi in Via Maggio. Recently, Charles Avery (1981, loc. cit.) has argued that two of the groups, both formerly in Loeser's own collection, may be by the so-called Master of the Unruly Children. However, since Rustici is recorded as having produced groups of precisely this type, there seems no compelling reason not to attribute the present terracotta to him. The composition, with its tight-knit mêlée of horses and men was directly inspired by Leonardo's cartoon for his mural of the Battle of Anghiari.
In Vasari's Vita of Gianfrancesco Rustici, he refers to the fact that the artist 'learned many things from Leonardo, but especially to make horses, which delighted him so much, that he made them of terracotta and of wax, in the round and in bas-relief. . . Of his terracottas of horses with men above and below, there are many in the houses of the citizens of Florence. These, since he was courtesy personified, he gave to various of his friends'. In 1928, Charles Loeser (op. cit., pp. 266-271) published four groups of fighting horsemen corresponding to Vasari's description, and attributed them to Rustici. The present group, is a fifth, close in composition to Loeser's Plate IIIc, now in the Loeser Collection in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, but formerly in Casa Ridolfi in Via Maggio. Recently, Charles Avery (1981, loc. cit.) has argued that two of the groups, both formerly in Loeser's own collection, may be by the so-called Master of the Unruly Children. However, since Rustici is recorded as having produced groups of precisely this type, there seems no compelling reason not to attribute the present terracotta to him. The composition, with its tight-knit mêlée of horses and men was directly inspired by Leonardo's cartoon for his mural of the Battle of Anghiari.