Percheron Stallion: Rhum

Herbert Haseltine conceived Percheron Stallion: Rhum and Percheron Mare: Messaline and Foal (Lot 31) as part of a series of British champion animals, most of which the artist modeled from life between 1922 and 1924. The present work was modeled after the horse Rhum who received champion honors at the Royal Agricultural Society of England between 1921-23 and the Norwich Stallion show in 1922 and 1933.

The present work and Lot 31 are each one of six unique bronze castings of this scale. Three marble and stone examples of this size were also created, and the models were later cast in smaller one-quarter and one-eighth life-size versions. Other examples of this scale are in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. In a letter to a curator at The Met, Haseltine wrote about the present works, "As your examples were cast in bronze at the same time as those for Mrs. Emmet, it is difficult to say which are considered to be the originals." (letter to Preston Remington, February 1, 1933, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Archives)