American, Probably late 19th Century
Pine with mellow patina; wooden saddle with leather trappings, horse-hair mane and tail; other mixed materials.
14 x 12 x 7 in.

Few folk carvings demonstrate such intricate details combined with appropriate mixed materials in such a successful manner as employed on this wonderful example of a carved horse standing quietly with his groom. The anonymous but clearly skillful artisan who carved this work imaginatively used the grain of the wood to imitate the whorls and patterns of the way hair grows on a horse¹s hide.

With its horsehair mane and tail, and leather harness, this carved figural group bears strong similarities to a small number of similar carved highly detailed figural groups,  including the Horse and Sulky from the Ray and Susan Egan Collection (Northeast Auctions, August 5, 2006, lot 871) as well as a processional group in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Collection at Williamsburg and illustrated in Jean Lipman, Elizabeth V. Warren and Robert Bishop, Young America: A Folk Art History (New York, 1986), fig. 8.22.