The Property of the Hon. David Emmet
HERBERT HASELTINE (1877-1962)

Details
HERBERT HASELTINE (1877-1962)

'Percheron', A Parcel-Gilt Bronze Figure of the Stallion Rhum

inscribed PERCHERON, HASELTINE MCMXXV, RHUM . FOALED MCMXVII SIRE LACOR . DAM MAZURKA . BRED IN FRANCE AND THE PROPERTY OF MRS. ROBERT EMMET . THE GREYLING STUD MORETON MORRELL . WARWICKSHIRE and FIRST LA MORTAGNE SHOW MCMXIX . FIRST AND CHAMPION AT THE SHOWS OF THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND MCMXXI MCMXXII MCMXXIII . FIRST AND CHAMPION NORWICH STALLION SHOW MCMXXII MCMXXIII, with paper labels on the underside, one inscribed 939 XV. Esposizione internazionale d'Arte della città di Venezia -1926 and the other inscribed VERIFICATO DOCANA ITALIANA JB5358
28¼in. (71.4cm.) high, rich greenish brown patina with black and white onyx inset eyes, on original oak plinth
Provenance
Evelyn, Baroness Emmet of Amberley, Amberley Castle, Sussex, England
By descent through the family
Literature
Field Museum of Natural History, Sculptures by Herbert Haseltine of Champion Domestic Animals of Great Britain, Zoology leaflet 13, Chicago, 1934, cat. no. 4 for the Bardiglio marble example
Knoedler's Gallery, Herbert Haseltine: Exhibition of Sculpture, July 10-August 9, 1930, London, England, cat. no 5 for the marble example
American Sculptor Series, Herbert Haseltine, 1948, vol. 7, p. 40, illus.
A.T.E. Gardner, American Sculpture: A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Greenwich, CT, 1965, p. 134 for another bronze example
Whitney Museum of American Art, 200 Years of American Sculpture, New York, 1976, pp. 140, 340, cat. no. 93, pl. 39, for the example in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
J. Conner & J. Rosenkranz, Rediscoveries in American Sculpture: Studio Works 1893-1939, Austin, Texas, 1989, p. 48
Exhibited
Venice, Esposizione internazionale d'Arte della città di Venezia, 1926

Lot Essay

Percheron (lot ) and Percherons (lot ) were conceived as part of a series of British champion animals that Haseltine worked on from 1921 to 1924. The artist travelled around Great Britain modeling the animals from life and later refined the models in his Paris studio. Haseltine's study of ancient art--Egyptian, Greek, Assyrian and Chinese--greatly influenced the figures in this series. Not only were the forms simplified and slightly stylized, but the artist experimented with different types of patinas and materials, as in the present examples in which black and white onyx are used for each horse's eyes.

Examples carved of Bardiglio marble, part of the commission of champion domestic animals of Great Britain ordered by Marshall Field for the Field Museum of Natural History, are now in the collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia.

The present one-third lifesize models were made for Mrs. Robert Emmet, later the Baroness Emmet of Amberley, who was Vice-Chairman of the House of Lords and on two occasions British Minister at the General Assembly of United Nations. Another set was given by Mrs. George Blumenthal to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 1926 (26.160.1 & 26.160.2). Reductions also exist in one-quarter life-size and small bronze statuettes of one-eighth life size.

Rhum was by Lagor and out of Mazurka, foaled 1917. Bred by M. Chopin, La Bigottière, Bellème, Mortagne, France, Rhum was the property of Mrs. Robert Emmet, the Greyling Stud, Moreton Morrell, Warwickshire, England. The stallion was First at Mortagne, 1919; First and Champion at the Show of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, 1921, 1922 and 1923; and First and Champion, Norwich Stallion Show, 1922 and 1923.