The Budapestan Horse: a Leonardo Puzzle

In 1914 the Museum of Fine Arts from Budapest (Szépművészeti Múzeum) acquired two small bronze statuettes: a rearing horse and a rider. The sculptures had been part of a collection assembled about hundred years earlier by a Hungarian artist, Ferenczy István, while in Rome.

They thought firstly that the statuettes were antique Greek art objects, but soon the question was raised whether they were not rather Renaissance works, and that's how the name of Leonardo came into picture. Was it possible that the rearing horse and the rider had been cast based on drawings made by Da Vinci?

There is no definite answer up to now. Recently a new study on this issue was organized at Washington National Gallery of Art: so the horse and the rider traveled for a couple of months to DC, and the American public had this way the opportunity to see the statuettes.


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(Washington DC National Gallery of Art)