The Arab knight (Guillemin)

***The Arabian horse*** or ***Le Chevalier guerrier arabe à cheval*** is a sculpture bronze equestrian statuette made in 1884 by Émile Guillemin and Alfred Barye.

## Creation

Guillemin's Arabian horse, renowned for its beauty, has inspired numerous non-original copies, including those produced in the 1800s and various low-quality reproductions and counterfeits, sometimes made in Asia. In contrast, the original version of the Arabian horse created in France during that period is of immense historical and artistic value and is considered priceless.

## Description

The work is an equestrian sculpture representing an Arab rider returning from hunting, with a rifle on his shoulder, a duck, and a gazelle hanging from the saddle. However, the central element is the Arabian horse, celebrated in Islamic culture and Muslim religion.

The sculpture depicts an Arab rider coming back from hunting, with a rifle on his shoulder, a duck, and a gazelle hanging from his saddle and was exhibited at the Salon at the Louvre in 1884. The horse, refined and elegant, features an exceptional anatomical study, with the left front leg gracefully raised. The details of the tense and contracted muscles, a specialty of the artist and his father, are particularly impressive. Additionally, the accuracy in the representation of the face, the movement of the body on the horse, and the details of the clothing further enrich the work.
It is signed “E. Guillemin and Barye Fils”.

## Exhibitions

It was exhibited at the Salon in the Louvre in 1884.

## Art market

The cost of the sculpture "Arabian Horse" in the Paris Art Galleries in 1923 was 30 million lire.
At a Sotheby's auction in New York in 2008, _Femme Kabyle d'Algerie and Janissaire du Sultan Mahmoud II_ (1967), bronze, by Emile Guillemin was sold for 1,202,500 euros plus auction fees.

The sculpture of the Arabian Horse has great differences in value between the original copies from when the sculptors were alive and the posthumous copies. The original copies made in France during the Belle Epoque exceed 300,000 euros in value outside of auction for private off market collectors.

## Public Collections

- Paris, Louvre.

## History

After a long journey through the desert, Muhammad set his tabun of Arabian horses free so they could quench their thirst at an oasis. However, before the horses reached the water, Muhammad called them to return to him. Only five mares obeyed. As they demonstrated their loyalty by returning to their master despite their intense thirst, Muhammad chose them for breeding. These five mares, known as Al-Khamsa (Arabic for “five”), became the legendary founders of the five “types” of Arabian horse. Although Al-Khamsa are considered mythological horses, some breeders still claim that the modern Bedouin Arabian horse truly descends from these mares.

According to a story told by the Bedouins, Allah created the Arabian horse from the southern wind.

In the Quran, the word “horse” is mentioned 5 times. In Sura 79 and Sura 100 called al-Nazi'at, the term al-Adiyat is interpreted as “horse,” while Sura 37 al-Saffat, Sura 51 al-Dhariyat, and Sura 77 al-Mursalat refer to horses.

## Styling

The composition of the bronze horse “Arab Rider” was created based on the principles of the naturalism movement. The statue is considered one of the most significant works of the so-called Belle Époque in France. The bronze horse is both plastic and elegant, with an extraordinary anatomical study that captures its position, with the left foreleg elegantly raised and the base of the muscles both stretched and contracted in action. Equally noteworthy is the delicate sculpture of the heroic knight, where the incredible precision in the depiction of the face is complemented by the dynamic movement of the body on the horse.

Orientalism refers to the Western fascination with exotic continents that gained popularity during the second half of the 19th century. Romantic portrayals of African countries in contemporary literature and art, such as “L'Africaine” and “Aida”, contributed to this exoticism in European art. In the United States, the 1876 Turkish Bazaar at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition further amplified the appeal of the "Turkish" or "Moorish" themes, which continued to influence art into the 1880s. Artists, moving away from the extreme monochrome of Neoclassicism, employed various bronzes, marbles, onyx, and colored stones, enriched with gold and silver, to enhance their works while maintaining a strong interest in the ethnography of their subjects.

## Related pages

- Arabian horse
- Femme Kabyle d'Algerie and Janissaire du Sultan Mahmoud II (Guillemin)

## Bibliography

- Pierre Kjellberg, _Les Bronzes du XIXe siècle: Dictionnaire des sculptures_, Les Éditions de l'Amateur, París, 1987, p.52-52, p.369, illus. ISBN 9782859170467.
- _Arabujo_ En 1905 en Aden propagandis Cap. H. E. Jacob. En 1907 y 1908 aparecieron libros de texto para árabes (de Muusbah, 43 p. y de Haddad, 56 p.) I. ŠIRJAEV.
- Die Weltkunst, Vol. 64, Ed. "Kunst und Technik" Verlags-GmbH, 1994.

## Other websites

- Google Arts and Culture Alfred Barye .

## Infobox (artwork)

- **title**: Arabian horse
- **other title 1**: Cheval arabe
- **caption**: The arab horse
- **artist**: Emile Guillemin, Alfred Barye
- **medium**: Bronze
- **movement**: Orientalism
- **subject**: Horse
- **dimensions**: 78 cm × 62 cm x 30
- **museum**: Louvre
- **city**: Paris, France
- **mapframe**: yes