Marly horses, Marble sculpture pair in Cour Marly, France
The Marly horses are a pair of marble sculptures featuring rearing steeds with kneeling grooms, carved entirely from Carrara marble. Each work stands approximately 3.40 meters tall and 2.84 meters wide.
Guillaume Coustou created these sculptures between 1743 and 1745 for King Louis XV. They were originally made to adorn the entrance to the Château de Marly's park, where they replaced earlier sculptural groups.
The horses' fame spread through reduced-scale reproductions, and their rearing pose fed the Romantic taste for equestrian subjects, notably in Théodore Géricault. From 1953 to 1983 the pair served as the central motif of the RTF/ORTF 819-line television test card. Victor Hugo described them as "these neighing marbles rearing on a cloud of gold".
The originals stand in the Cour Marly, a former courtyard of the Richelieu wing of the Louvre, renamed for them. The copies made by Michel Bourbon in 1984 are at the Place de la Concorde, where the originals stood from 1794 to 1984. Further casts by Bourbon were placed in 1985 near the trough of the former château de Marly in Marly-le-Roi, Yvelines.
Each horse displays taut muscles and visible veins that convey inner power and tension. The grooms beside them appear to strain with all their strength to restrain the animals, freezing a moment of intense struggle.
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