Bronze, silver, onyx and ivory
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/herbert-haseltine-1253" aria-label="More by Herbert Haseltine" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Herbert Haseltine</a>
Suffolk Punch Stallion Sudbourne Premier
Purchased 1932
animals: mammals
horse
<p><span>Suffolk Punch Stallion: Sudbourne Premier</span> is a small bronze sculpture of a horse, with eyes made of onyx and ivory, created by the Italian-born American sculptor Herbert Haseltine. Its surface finish is an even, dark greenish black colour with a uniformly mottled patina and a lightly waxed satin finish. The stallion is depicted as if walking, with its front right leg placed forward and its rear left leg raised as if about to take a step. Its head dips slightly, accentuating the muscles in its neck and the line of its crest. The horse’s mane is neatly braided, with a decorative silver bow in the fringe on its forehead. The tail is similarly braided and decorated, as if the horse were ready to be shown at a parade or fair. The sculpture stands on a dark green Swedish granite pedestal inscribed ‘SUFFOLK PUNCH’ on the front of the base and ‘HERBERT HASELTINE | MDCCCCXXXII’ on the back.</p>
sculpture bronze silver onyx ivory
26 April 2003 – 24 August 2003
2003-08-24
26 April 2003 – 24 August 2003
2003-08-24
2003-04-26
International Museum of the Horse (Lexington, USA)
2003-04-26
All the Queen's Horses
Loan-out
Suffolk Punch Stallion: Sudbourne Premier
object: 552 × 660 × 210 mm
Purchased 1932
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<i>Suffolk Punch Stallion: Sudbourne Premier</i> is a small bronze sculpture of a horse, with eyes made of onyx and ivory, created by the Italian-born American sculptor Herbert Haseltine. Its surface finish is an even, dark greenish black colour with a uniformly mottled patina and a lightly waxed satin finish. The stallion is depicted as if walking, with its front right leg placed forward and its rear left leg raised as if about to take a step. Its head dips slightly, accentuating the muscles in its neck and the line of its crest. The horse’s mane is neatly braided, with a decorative silver bow in the fringe on its forehead. The tail is similarly braided and decorated, as if the horse were ready to be shown at a parade or fair. The sculpture stands on a dark green Swedish granite pedestal inscribed ‘SUFFOLK PUNCH’ on the front of the base and ‘HERBERT HASELTINE | MDCCCCXXXII’ on the back.</p>
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<i>Suffolk Punch Stallion: Sudbourne Premier</i><b> </b>was made by Haseltine in Paris in 1931–2 and depicts a champion Suffolk Punch breed chestnut stallion named Sudbourne Premier. The artist initially modelled the horse from life before casting it in bronze using the lost wax process, a method in which molten metal is poured into a wax mould, replacing the wax and creating a duplicate. The stone inlays in the eyes, fixed in place after casting, have been carved from onyx and ivory. The silver bows that decorate the fringe and the tail have been hammered into pre-cast holes.</p>
<p>Haseltine attended Harvard University before travelling to Europe to study drawing and painting in Munich and then in Rome. In 1900 he moved to Paris where he spent two years studying at the Académie Julian. At this time he also undertook private study with the French history painter Aimé Morot, who was renowned for his skill in depicting horses. Haseltine was interested in polo and hunting and has noted that at this time he ‘was unconsciously studying the conformation and movement of horses, which served as a foundation for more serious work in later years’ (quoted in Cormack 1996, p.1). Early success with works such as <i>The Meadowbrook Team</i> 1909 (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; reproduced in Ward 1992, p.27) demonstrated his diligence in observing and rendering the detail of equine anatomy and equipment.</p>
<p>Following a one-man show at Agnew’s Gallery in London in 1921, Haseltine travelled around England, Scotland and Ireland, observing and sculpting animals in situ before refining them in his studio in Paris. The original project, completed in 1924, produced twenty sculptures in a variety of mediums in the series <i>British Champion Animals</i>, which featured pedigree horses, pigs, sheep and cows, such as the later cast <i>Berkshire Boar: Highfield Royal Pygmalion</i> 1933 (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Virginia), and included <i>Suffolk Punch Stallion: Sudbourne Premier</i>. In his unpublished memoirs Haseltine recalled modelling the stallion in motion:</p>
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</p><blockquote>I placed my stand in the middle of an open space and had him walked [sic] round and round, first one way, then another. Sudbourne Premier was at his best: he stretched his neck and champed his bit, looking intelligently to right and left, showing a little of the whites of his eyes, which gave more life and expression to his already expressive and classical head.<br/>(Quoted in Cormack 1996, p.23.)</blockquote>
<p>After the series was complete Haseltine continued to produce further versions of his <i>British Champion Animals</i> in a variety of other materials, not limiting himself to representational colours but instead selecting differing bronze patinas, marbles and stones.</p>
<p>The initial group of twenty <i>British Champion Animals</i>, including <i>Suffolk Punch Stallion: Sudbourne Premier</i>, was shown at Galerie Georges Petit in Paris in June 1925, and at Knoedler’s Gallery, London, in July–August 1925 and July–August 1930. Following the latter exhibition, and once the works were back in Haseltine’s Paris studio, the Tate Gallery decided to buy the version of <i>Suffolk Punch Stallion: Sudbourne Premier </i>that Haseltine had made in Burgundy stone. When this sculpture was smashed in transit the museum commissioned the present work in bronze to replace it, which Haseltine completed in 1932.</p>
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<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Meredith E. Ward, <i>William Stanley Haseltine (1835–1900) and Herbert Haseltine</i> <i>(1877–1962)</i>, exhibition catalogue, Hirschl and Adler Galleries, New York 1992, pp.22–43, reproduced p.30.<br/>Malcolm Cormack, <i>Champion Animals: Sculptures by Herbert Haseltine</i>, Richmond, Virginia 1996, reproduced p.22.</p>
<p>Beth Williamson<br/>January 2017</p>
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<i>Supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art.</i>
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Summary
2017-03-09T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<strong>Herbert Haseltine</strong> 1877-1962
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<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/haseltine-suffolk-punch-stallion-sudbourne-premier-n04560" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N04560</span></a> <strong>Suffolk Punch Stallion: Sudbourne Premier</strong> 1931-2
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Inscribed 'SUFFOLK PUNCH' on front of base and 'HERBERT HASELTINE | MDCCCCXXXII' on back of base<br/>
Bronze, with onyx and ivory eyes, 21 3/4 x 26 x 8 1/4 (55.2 x 66 x 21) excluding base<br/>
Purchased from the artist (Grant-in-Aid 'T' Fund) 1932<br/>
<em>Lit:</em> Herbert Haseltine, <em>Herbert Haseltine</em> (New York 1948), pp.7-8
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Suffolk Punch Stallion: Sudbourne Premier, foaled in 1919, was First and Champion at the shows of the Royal Agricultural Society in 1921 and 1922. Full particulars of its pedigree, etc., are given in the catalogue of Haseltine's exhibition at Knoedler's, London, in 1925 (3).
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The <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/sculpture" title="Glossary definition for 'Sculpture'"><span>sculptor</span></a> relates in the catalogue of his exhibition at Frank Partridge, London, in 1953 that the idea of making a series of British Champion Animals (pedigree horses, cows, pigs and sheep) came to him after he had finished a sculpture of King George V's champion Shire Stallion, Field Marshal V, in the summer of 1921. 'The original models were made in various parts of England, Scotland and Ireland during 1922, 1923 and 1924. These were finished in my studio in Paris and were <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/cast" title="Glossary definition for 'Cast'"><span>cast</span></a> in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/metal" title="Glossary definition for 'Metal'"><span>bronze</span></a> or carved in marble and stone'. The collection numbering twenty animals, and including 'Suffolk Punch', was exhibited in Paris in June 1925 and in July and August the same year at Knoedler's Gallery in London, then again at Knoedler's in July and August 1930. Five more were later added to complete the set. In December 1930, when the exhibition at Knoedler's was over and the works were back in the artist's studio in Paris, Haseltine heard from the Tate Gallery that the Trustees had decided to buy the version of 'Suffolk Punch' in Burgundy stone (no.2 in the exhibition and reproduced). This, however, was smashed in transit. The Trustees thereupon commissioned a repetition of the same subject in bronze.
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Slightly different versions in bronze belong to the Field Museum in Chicago and to the Louvre (ex Luxembourg Museum). There are also versions of the head alone.
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<strong>Published in:</strong><br/>
Ronald Alley, <em>Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists</em>, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, p.354, reproduced p.354
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Catalogue entry
2004-09-21T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
animals: mammals horse