After William Morris Hunt (Brattleboro, Vermont, 1824 - 1879, Appledore Island, Maine)
The Horses of Anahita, or The Flight of Night, 1880
Plaster, 48.9 x 70.8 x 28.6 cm (19 1/4 x 27 7/8 x 11 1/4 in.)
This rectangular plaster work reads like a painting coming to life and leaping off of the wall. The background is a rectangle of sepia and white shading, with a dark wooden frame surrounding it. In the foreground there are three horses and a man holding onto to the one on our left. While the backs of the horses are in relief close to the background, the front of them protrude far out of the frame. The horse to our right has all but its hindlegs in the air. Its body is curved as if he is aiming to run over our left shoulder. Its head is bent down in concentration and its mane is slicked back by the movement. It is the only horse with its entire body on display. The center horse rears up, with the back of its body hidden by the horse on the right. Its front legs have made it out of the background and reach out towards our left. Its head it thrown back and its mouth is open. The strained muscles of its neck and chest show off its power. The horse on our right has its snout angled down as the man standing beside it has his hand resting on it. The man has his face angled down mirroring the horse next to it and is holding some sort of cloth in his right hand. He is nude and one of his legs is in prominent relief, while the other fades back into it.
Vatichino
Commentary
William Morris Hunt modeled the horses pulling the chariot of the Anahita, the Persian goddess of fertility and the night, in preparation for a larger composition. Three of the deity’s horses charge forward, alongside a torch-bearing attendant. The Horses of Anahita was one of Hunt’s best known works, and the artist and his estate made multiple plaster casts of the sculpture.
This cast was an early acquisition by Isabella Stewart Gardner, who loved animals and even made a charitable donation to the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals [MSPCA] in memory of her three horses—Dolly, Pluto, and Lady Betty.