Large votive image: stallion on split stand

Animals form the vast majority of early votive figures found in Greek sanctuaries and most of them are male: stallions and bulls, rams and dogs, geese and cockerels, buck hares and stags. The Berlin stallion is in many ways a magnificent example of this kind of votive statuary; not only is it one of the largest surviving Geometric votive statuettes, it is also a good example of a particular technical form that was only ever used in the Geometric style to depict living creatures as seen here. To relieve the cast mass, whose materiality limited it to a certain format, the wax model for the bronze cast was itself formed from thin plates, as a precursor of later casting methods in which the bronze was formed around a hollow or a core. This statuette was produced in the 8th century BCE using this method by a circle of workshops, now believed to have centred around Corinth. The individual parts of this exquisite cast derive their spherical tension from this method and are thus predominantly characterised by their contours. Only the muzzle and body have the thin cylindrical form otherwise popular in Geometric figures. The front of the mouth and the eyes were dipped in iron. Fine engravings run along the base of the neck, joining the mouth with the hind legs. The stand, which was required even to construct the wax model, is adorned in the late Geometric fashion with even rows of carved triangles. The base places the animal in a defined, lineal spatial context, which gives substance, as it were, to the statuette’s peculiar form, born of technical necessity. As one of the most important herd animals for the farming people who came to Olympia in the 7th century BCE, the breeding stallion has been depicted here with exceptional precision, instantly recognisable from a mere few basic forms. The technical quality of the work indicates that the artist already lived in the early Greek polis where labour was divided into specialised functions.