Horse

The realist painter Thomas Eakins was the director of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts when he modeled this study of horse anatomy. Known as an écorché, an anatomical study in which skin and tissue are partially removed to reveal the musculature, the sculpture was the result of investigations that Eakins and his modeling students made in 1882. In that year, Eakins’s friend and patron Fairman Rogers lost his favorite mare Josephine, which was featured in Eakins’s painting A May Morning in the Park (Fairman Rogers Four in Hand). Rogers donated the animal’s remains to the Pennsylvania Academy where Eakins made three écorchés, including the one from which this bronze was cast. Eakins’s commitment to realism and anatomical study meant that dissections were a common occurrence under his supervision.