Herbert Haseltine

Overall the bronze is in excellent condition. There is some minor wear consistent with age. Some minor spots of blue and white paint to the nose.
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Herbert Haseltine was the son of the established American painter William Stanley Haseltine and his art collector wife, Helen Marshall. Herbert was born in Rome and grew up amongst the ex-patriot American community there. As a youth he was a skilled rider and his interest in horses continued throughout his life and oeuvre. He graduated from Harvard but spent the greater part of his time there drawing illustrations for the Harvard Lampoon rather than attending to his studies. On leaving university Haseltine began a rather leisurely course of artistic study beginning with two years taking drawing classes at the Academie Julien in Paris. He further developed his interest in hunting and polo in these years and sought out a teacher who would understand his fascination with horses. He found the painter Aimé-Nicolas Morot who encouraged him to make models of his subjects as preparatory studies for painting. Haseltine discovered an aptitude and exhibited his first sculpture, a polo group entitled "Riding Off", in the Paris Salon of 1906.

Haseltine first began work on modelling the ideal thoroughbred horse in 1911. In a letter to Gertrude Whitney he wrote 'I am working very hard and am building up an armature...for a bigger than life-size model of a thoroughbred...' Haseltine first exhibited The Thoroughbred Horse at the Salon of 1913 in a plaster standing at 20 hands or 80 inches.

The Thoroughbred Horse exemplifies Haseltine's working methods and aspirations. He was dedicated to defining the ideal form of the specimens he worked on, showcasing the best breeding and most idealistic form in his animal sculptures, especially in his series of British Champion Breeds. He reworked and refined the Thoroughbred model throughout his career and each new reworked model was cast in reductions.

RELATED LITERATURE
National Sculpture Society, p. 23; Conner & Rosenkrantz, p.46