In the early nineteenth century, American farmers and breeders became increasingly interested in raising purebred stock to be exhibited at Agricultural Society fairs. Fine bloodstock became the model for the farm weathervane, in this case, an elegant horse with luxuriant silky tail. Although this cast-iron horse weathervane is a multiple, the image is virtually an icon of American folk art, versions of it having been in the pioneer collection of Edith Halpert and exhibited at the Newark Museum in 1931 and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1932.

Related examples: The Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, Vermont; MMA; and MFA, Boston. For others, see MOMA 1932, no. 149; Lipman 1948, fig. 41; Bishop and Coblentz 1981, p. 72, fig. 118; Miller 1984, p. 27; Sotheby’s, New York, Feldman sale, June 23, 1988, lot 50.

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.