Rosselenker (Man Guiding a Horse)

Louis Tuaillon (d. 1919) was a Prussian sculptor whose heroic equestrian groups and classical nudes laid the foundation of Berlin’s modern sculpture school. Tuaillon initially worked in the studio of Reinhold Begas. In Vienna he spent two years in the studio of Rudolf Weyr, followed by a period spent in Rome where he executed his monumental bronze Amazone zu Pferde, erected in front of the Nationalgalerie in Berlin in 1898. As a member of Berliner Sezession from 1902, the artist took on Georg Kolbe as a student, overseeing the groundbreaking German artist’s shift from painter to sculptor. In 1906 Tuaillon was nominated Professor at the Berlin Academy. The present figure of Der Rosselenker is a reduction of this artist’s monumental original cast in 1902 by Bremen merchant Franz E. Schütte. Another example of this model was sold sold Sotheby’s, Amsterdam, 30 September 2008, lot 687 (€51,150).