Bronze Cast of Da Vinci’s Last Known Beeswax Maquette Priced at $100 Million

"There are several clues that lead to this interpretation; the horse is portrayed disarranging the rider to indicate that the animal is frightened. It is going down to the underworld, while the knight, Charles d’Amboise, on the other hand, is portrayed in a serene mood and eyes closed, the hand on his heart; the Governor of Milan is parting from his loved ones. Finally, one can notice the thigh protector in the shape of a shell, a symbol of travel, in this case without return." 

However, the larger sculpture was never completed, and the beeswax model eventually fell into the family of Da Vinci’s protégé, Francesco Melzi, after the Renaissance master’s death in 1519. The earliest provenance records of the sculpture appear in Giorgio Sangiorgi’s collection in the mid 1880s. By 1938, an unknown Italian collector had removed the sculpture from war-torn Italy and secured it in a Swiss bank vault. 

David Nickerson, director of the art dealership Mallett at Bourdon House in London, acquired the wax model in 1985 and presented it to a group of American businessmen in hopes of marketing limited editions of the bronze cast. 

Though a latex cast of the maquette was commissioned after the sale in 1985, the actual casting of the sculpture wasn’t completed until 2012. Horse and Rider was officially included in Da Vinci’s catalogue raisonné until the late 1980s by art historian Carlo Pedretti, ten years after he discovered its existence in the Swiss vault. 

The latex mold and bronze cast’s current owners, a business called Silverpoint Holdings, are now hoping to garner $100 million for both objects. Though it’s unknown if their attempt will be successful, as per Artnet, Art Encounter’s owner Rod Maly specified they’d consider reaching out to larger auction houses if push came to shove. 

Maly also mentioned that a buyer would be within their right to commission another cast from the latex mold if they desired to, and that “if they wanted to cast it from the bronze, yes, if they wanted to cast it from the mold, they could.” He then added, “The mold is not in great shape. And the wax is not in good shape either. I saw it two years ago in London.” 

As of right now, the original beeswax sculpture is kept in a climate-controlled private collection in London, but has succumbed to decomposition. The horse’s ears and front left leg are done, as are the rider’s arms. The last time the original sculpture was open to public viewing was in the mid-to-late 90s for a world-wide traveling exhibition entitled "Leonardo da Vinci: Scientist, Inventor, Artist." 

Horse and Rider has been authenticated by teams at Oxford University and Sotheby’s that put it through scientific testing, finding not only Da Vinci’s signature and fingerprints, but evidence tying it to the early 1500s.