AN EQUESTRIAN GILT LEAD FIGURE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT OF PRUSSIA, cast from a model by Emanuel Bardou, the monarch depicted wearing a tricorn hat, the horse with right foreleg and left rear leg raised, on a rectangular plinth signed and dated E Bardou fecit 1782 ...Berlin (on wooden base; minor damages; some wear to patination; the reins and one stirrup strap lacking; with later supports for the raised legs), circa 1782

Details
AN EQUESTRIAN GILT LEAD FIGURE OF FREDERICK THE GREAT OF PRUSSIA, cast from a model by Emanuel Bardou, the monarch depicted wearing a tricorn hat, the horse with right foreleg and left rear leg raised, on a rectangular plinth signed and dated E Bardou fecit 1782 ...Berlin (on wooden base; minor damages; some wear to patination; the reins and one stirrup strap lacking; with later supports for the raised legs), circa 1782
13½in. (34.3cm.) high
Literature
Hamburg, Hamburger Bahnhof, Ethos und Pathos die Berliner Bildhauerschule 1786-1914, 1990, no. 7

Lot Essay

Emanuel Bardou (Basel 1744-Berlin 1818) worked on this model in 1778, using Chodowiecki's engraving of 1777 as his inspiration. Both portraits found immediate public approbation. Bardou's statuette was reproduced in bronze, iron, lead and porcelain. His plaster model, dated 1778, is in the Abbey of Chaalis near Paris, a finely chased bronze example dated 1778 is in a German private collection, another dated 1779 is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (op.cit.), and another bronze version, dated 1804, was in Berlin.

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