Works of Art

In 1901 Remington wrote his friend the novelist Owen Wister that he was completing the “mud” of an Indian on his pony “burning the air.” The Cheyenne was the sixth of Remington’s bronzes to be cast. In this work, the artist was most interested in conveying the illusion of having all four of the horse’s hooves off the ground. The bronze was a special challenge to the foundry; besides its daring composition, it was the first of Remington’s bronzes to be cast in one piece. As with his other bronzes, Remington worked closely with the foundry artisans to refine the sculptural details. The production of these unforgettable western bronzes was very much the result of a team approach to execution.

Remington’s spirited bronze of The Cheyenne was one of the first subjects produced by Roman Bronze Works using the lost-wax casting process. The foundry’s owner, Riccardo Bertelli, was anxious to please Remington as a potential client, and the early casts of the warrior on horseback are among the finest in terms of texture and detail that the foundry ever created for the artist. Remington was particularly anxious for the final bronze to retain a strong sense of motion. In a letter to Bertelli, he provided a sketch of the model with a vertical axis drawn to show how he wanted the buffalo robe to support the figure but to the rear of the center. “I very much want to preserve the effect of the action which would be ruined by bringing it too far forward,” he wrote. To the artist’s relief, Bertelli was able to comply with the request. Remington supervised only twenty casts of this work before he destroyed the mold. Only the first six casts display a beautiful brownish yellow patina, instead of the dark greenish black coloring used on later examples such as the one illustrated here. In general the casts made during Remington’s lifetime have the highest degree of finish and surface detail. It is particularly interesting to note the changes that Remington himself made in the work: after cast #6 he moved the shield down to the lower part of the Indian’s back, adding feathers to it. The artist made other changes in some of the details, possibly to simplify the finishing process. Casts made after the artist’s death in December 1909 show far less detail than the lifetime casts. This example is posthumous cast #80, probably cast by Roman Bronze Works in the 1920s.