Equestrian

Works in the tradition of the equestrian portrait, in which the sitter is depicted on horseback. The mounted figure has been used to convey a sense of authority and monumentality since antiquity, the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius in Rome a prime example. Surviving through the Middle Ages, the convention was popularly taken up by artists like Donatello as part of the Renaissance revival of classical forms. The equestrian portrait was a regular court commission during the Baroque and Neoclassical periods, as seen in paintings by Diego Velázquez and Jacques-Louis David. In a similar vein, horses also figure centrally in scenes of war (as in those painted by Paolo Uccello), and they have remained a motif in modern and contemporary art, though increasingly portrayed in a manner that critiques or parodies monumentality.