Focus on Rearing Horse and Mounted Warrior and analyze the History.
In 1516, after invitations from King Francis I of France and his predecessor, Louis XII of France, Leonardo moved to France and entered the service of Francis I. Art chronicler Gian Paolo Lomazzo, close to Leonardo's heirs, wrote in 1584 that Leonardo had made several models of horses for Francis. This statuette is believed to be one of them.Towards the end of his life, Leonardo was working on several equestrian monuments, and did several studies of horses on worksheets that have been preserved in the Royal Collection in Windsor Castle. This statuette was depicted in sketches from c.1490 and c.1517–1518 with and without the rider. By then Leonardo was unable to continue with artwork much beyond sketches, but did for instance supervise bronze casting of statues at the king's Palace of Fontainebleau.By 1540, Leonardo's follower Leone Leoni was also commissioned to create an equestrian statuette while he was a court sculptor to Charles V, who governed Milan at the time. In 1549 and 1550, Leoni sent several letters to Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle requesting that Leonardo's statuette from the king's court be sent back to him. An equestrian bronze model was recorded in the Leoni collection at their home Casa degli Omenoni before the collection was dispersed by 1620.The outline of the statuette also features in a c.1545 scrollwork from the Fontainebleau workshops of Francis I. The scrollwork has a detailed design for the decoration of a horse's chanfron head armour to be used in jousting.
Louis XII Charles V Palace of Fontainebleau Louis XII of France Francis I of France Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle Gian Paolo Lomazzo Leone Leoni Royal Collection bronze jousting Casa degli Omenoni court sculptor scrollwork Windsor Castle chanfron