the stallion in a trotting posture with fully developed muscles and gracefully curved neck, one tress of the long, flowing mane falling over the right shoulder, the head, slightly inclined to the right, with alert expression and with indications of original fittings for a bridle and reins, the back now covered with a scallop-edged saddle-blanket, a fully chased girth about his belly, the naturalistic, rectangular base worked with various rocks and grasses, rich copper-brown patina beneath traces of orange-brown translucent varnish and dark-brown lacquer, with good original plugs and patches.

Collection Joseph Depestre(1757-1823), comte de Seneffe, most probably inherited from his father Julien (d.1774), mentioned in a late 18^th century inventory
General Denis Mathier Talon, circa 1825, grandson of the above
Alain Talon, by inheritance from his mother, niece of the above, and then by direct descent.
Sold at Sotheby's Monaco SA, June 24 and 25, 1984, lot 3267.
The Keck Collection, sold Sotheby's New York, Dec🅰ember 5th and 6th, 1991, lot 23.

Sale Catalogue of the Collection of Paintings and Sculpture from the Chateau de Seneffe, 1820-30.
M. Martin, Les Monuments Équestres de Louis XIV, Paris 1986, p. 122, figs. 67-8.

RELATED  LITERATURE

G. Keller-Dorian, Antoine Coysevox(1640-1720): Catalogue raisonné de son oeuvre, Paris. 1920

H. von Friis, Rytterstatuens Historie I Europa, Copenhagen 1933.

R. Wittkower, Bernini, London 1955, pp. 234-6, figs. 107 and 108

A. Vachon, "Talon, Jean," in Dictionnaire biographique du Canada, vol. I, 1000 to 1700, Toronto, 1966, p. 629646

The French Bronze, 1500-1800,ౠ M. Knoedler & Co., New York 1968, cat༺. no. 41.

F. Souchal, French Sculptors in the 17th and 18th Centuries, vol. I, Oxford, 1977, pp.198, 199, 210 and vol. IV Supplement , 1993👍, p. 57, no.49

C. Avery and A. Radcliffe, Giambologna. Sculptor to the Medici, (exh.cat.), London 1978, figs. 151-160.

N. Barbier, Coysevox: La Bretagne offrant a Louis XIV Le projet de sa statue équestre, Rennes, 1979

Glorious Horsemen. Equestrian Art in Europe, 1500-1800, (exh.cat.), Museum of Fine Arts Springfiel🐈d, MA 🌼1981.

M. Martin, Les Monuments Équestres de Louis XIV, Paris 1986, pp. 114-116, figs. 60 and 61.

D. Syndram, Die Schatzkammer Augusts de Starken, Sammlung zum Grü📖ඣnes Gewðlbe, Desden, 1999, pp. 116-119.

The attribution of this exceptional bronze horse to the king’s most important sculptor of the period, Coysevox (1640-1720), and his workshop rests on direct parallels with an equestrian monument of Louis XIV, contracted on June 9, 1686 to Coysevox. Sadly, this monument, erected at Rennes in 1726, was destroyed in 1792. However, it survives through several reproductions, including the engraving by Thomassin (fig.1) and another by Jean-Baptiste Biard. Huguet executed a gouache of the same which is preserved in the Bibliothèque Municipale, Rennes (Martin, op.cit, p.122, fig.64.). Furthermore, Souchal illustrates (op.cit, figs.49a,b) the two bronze bas-reliefs, made for the pedestal of the statue, which depict the pඣresentation of this project by Jules Hardouin-Mansart to the king. These are the only remaining vestiges of the original monument, 🌞now preserved in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rennes.

The resemblance of the present bronze to these reproductions of the monument is unquestionable. The combination of a natural and formal gait is precisely the same. Similarly, one long, slightly curled, tress of the mane falls over the right shoulder, while the balance of the mane remains on the left side of the neck and shoulders. The bridle is also comparable, with the exception of the bit; here a simple bridle with a noseband was pr♛obably attached and secured by a chain on the outside of the mouth.

Martin (op.cit, p.126) discusses the probability that the present horse is a cast of the final, preparatory model for the monument at Rennes. Such casts were customarily made and employed as gifts to the king and other members of the court. The Depestre, a noble family in 18th century Belgium, and the Talon family both had strong connections to the crown, the latter as early as the 17^th century.  The grand-daughter of Julien Depestre married a member of the Talon family, Antoine Omer Talon (d. 1811), and one of their children was a favorite of King Louis XVIII. The present bronze horse was likely purchased by Julien Depestre in the 18th century and was then handed down to his son, Joseph (fig.2) and purchased from the sale of the Château de Seneffe (fig.3), the family home, by his grandson, Denis Talon. Joseph Depestre (1757-1823) was the eldest son of Julien Depestre and Isabelle Gogels. In 1774, he inherited a considerable fortune and purchased many objets d’art. The “grand salon” of the Château was decorated in 1780 and in an inventory dating from the 🤪end of t♛he XVIII century the present bronze is mentioned: “La cheminée porte un grand cheval de bronze une des plus precieuses oeuvres d’art de Séneffe”.

It is interesting to note that at the age of 30, Jean Talon (1625-1694) became Intendant of Hainault (in Belgium where the Château de Sènneffe is located), a post occupied until 1665.  He was created Intendant to New France (Canada), giving him ultimate authority in representing the crown abroad. He enjoyed the confidence of Louis XIV and his finance minister, Colbert and was eventually named Secretary of the King’s Cabinet and First Gentleman of the Chamber, the latter being a position of great honor during that period. Talon’s aesthetic tastes also appear to have been quite refined, according to an article noting the existence of an inventory of his possessions after his death (Vachon, op.cit.). Jean Talon died, unmarried, in 1694 in France, leaving a considerable fortune to his nieces and nephews as well as several charitable institutions. It is interesting to consider the possibility that the highly decorated Jean Talon, extremely close to Louis XIV, was given the present bronze horse as a gift for his work in Canada. The bronze may have then been dispersed with his estate, making its way back to the family in the 18^th century through marriage.

The possibility that this bronze is a reduction of the finished monument at Rennes should also be mentioned, although this is a less plausible conclusion. If this were the case, one would expect to find many reductions of the original bronze, but at present, the only other known versions of this horse are the equestrian groups of Augustus the Strong in the Grünes Gewðlbe, Dresden (fig.4) and the horse and ridᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚer in the Prado. The Dresden bronze was purchased by the elector's architect, Le Plat, in Paris in 1715, and was noted in the inventory as the most expensive purchase for the collection that year. This bronze has been attributed to Girardon's workshop based on comparisons with drawings of his equestrian monument for the Place Vendôme, as well as known reductions of this monument, such as the example in the Musée du Louvre.

However, the Girardon model is extremely different in the details and overall modelling. The Dresden and Prado groups and the present horse are identical in facture, treatment of the musculature, bones,veins and hair, the separately attached bridle (rathe♏r than cast integrally), the stippled girth strap with decorated borders and the distinctive terrasse base upon the rectangular platform e꧋mbellished with delicately stippled border around the entire edge.

Another bronze, seemingly cast from the same model as the present piece, and only a centimeter smaller, has been recently discovered. The tr𒅌eatment of the surface, the color and the facture are different from the present bronze. Although, the facture of this other horse is similar to the detachable saddle blanket on present lot. Both that horse and this saddle blanket were presumably cast at the same time, only slightly later than the pe🐻riod when the present horse was cast.

The primary source for equestrian imagery during the Renaissance and subsequent periods lay in the ancient monumental sculpture in Italy that remained standing and accessible to the publ🦄ic. The Marcus Aurelius and the Dioscuri in Rome and the San Marco horses in Venice were the most commonly employed prototypes, still receiving great attention by sculptors in the 17th and 18th centuries.☂ The present bronze horse derives from the first of approximately twenty equestrian monuments planned for the French provinces to promote the image of Louis XIV after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The most important among these monuments were realized by the sculptors Coysevox, Girardon and Desjardins.

Antoine Coysevox was appointed Sculpteur du Roi in 1666 and was thereafter principally employed exe♛cuting nu💝merous portraits of the king and decorating various royal châteaux, an important example of which is his extensive work in the Salon de la Guerre at Versailles.

An attribution of this magnificent bronze to Coysevox is further enhanced by close affinities of the present bronze to his equestrian groups of Fame and Mercury executed in 1701-2 for the Tuilleries (Souchal, op.cit, fig. 77). Compare the eye sockets, brow and developed musculature in the bronze reductions of these groups from the workshop of Coysevox (The French Bronze, op.cit, cat.no. 41). Furthermore, the naturalistically treated terrasse bases are equally comparable.

The association of horses sculpted in bronze in this period with those of the Florentine master Giambologna (Avery, op.cit, figs.151-160.) is often cited, and there is no doubt that Coysevox knew the equestrian monument of Henry IV by Giambologna on the Pont-Neuf (destroyed in 1792). However, those animals have a more taut flesh and more sylized hindquarters. They are idealized and somewhat more 'controlled' with broad, necks that bend in an unnatural manner. In the present bronze, the sculptor has developed a fleshy and realistically muscular surface. There is shape to the haunch, rather than a repetition of arched forms. Indeed, Cosyevox was known to have observed the king's stable horses to fully comprehend movement and treatment of flesh (Keller-Dorian, op.cit, p.451). Certainly, he also knew the equestrian monument by Bernini of Louis XIV (Wittkower, op.cit, fig.107) contracted in 1669, completed in 1677 and unveiled in Paris in 1685. The dissatisfied monarch banished the marble, and it was subsequently recarved into a Marcus Curtius by Girardon. During 🌄this period, Coysevox would have mastered the essence of Baroque movement and the dramatic interplay of fleshy joints and musculature.

An auction sa♛le catalogue of the collection of paintings and sculpture from the Château de Seneffe, printed between 1820 and 1830, describes this magnificent sculpture in the following words: 'Un cheval en bronze, dit le gameux cheval en bronze; cette pièce est unique par toutes ses perfections et beautés, sa g🍸randeur est d'environ quart de nature.'