Horse and rider

The exquisite Horse and rider is an ancient object that appears remarkably contemporary. Although the terracotta figurine is more than 2500 years old, it resonates with modern minimalism through the simplicity of its composition of a legless bareback rider merged bodily with his mount. The conceptual union of horse and horseman is reiterated by the reprised profile of the animal’s erect mane in the rider’s helmet plume, which in real life would have been made of horsehair. Movement is abstracted through an uncomplicated decoration of dark striations.

Such horse and rider figures were popular grave offerings during the sixth century BCE in Boeotia, a region of ancient Greece near Athens. Horses were beyond the means of common folk, and the figurine probably indicates the dead man’s social, financial and political status. His helmet also identifies him as a warrior – a cavalryman, above the standing of the regular hoplite foot soldier.