Tired Horse
Maker: Ehrlich, Georg
Bronze figure of a horse
Sir Ivor and Lady Batchelor Bequest through The Art Fund
Weight: 15.07 kg
Method of acquisition: Bequeathed (2015-04-27) by Batchelor, Ivor, Sir and Lady
20th Century
Production date:
AD 1961
With lowered head and cocked hind hoof, the exhausted horse appears to be relaxing, although the pinned back ears hint at some unseen tension or physical discomfort. As a child, Ehrlich drew the horses at the cab stands in his native Vienna, and Tired Horse – made towards the end of his life – surely recalls these animals. Having studied art at Vienna’s Kunstgewerbeschule (1912–15), Ehrlich served in the Austrian army (1915–18). After the War, he worked as a printmaker in Munich and Berlin before returning to Vienna in 1923/4, where he started producing three-dimensional work. Ehrlich’s sculpture is firmly rooted in the figurative tradition, with human and animal subjects predominating. His wife Bettina, also an artist, became expert at casting and patinating Ehrlich’s bronzes. Having left Vienna for London in 1937, Ehrlich’s Jewish roots meant that it was too dangerous for him to return home after the Anschluss (March 1938), so Bettina joined him in England a few months later; in 1947, they became British citizens. They were great friends of the composer Benjamin Britten (1913-76) and his partner, the singer Peter Pears (1910-86). It was Pears who wrote the introductory essay to Ehrlich’s 1964 Arts Council exhibition booklet, stating that with his friend’s work ‘one cannot tell where craft stops and magic begins’. Pears and Britten collected many works by Ehrlich, including another version of Tired Horse, which can still be seen today at their former home, The Red House, in Aldeburgh, Suffolk.
Base
Height 2.3 cm
Length 11.5 cm
Width 19.4 cm
Figure
Height 25.8 cm
Length 10.9 cm
Width 40.1 cm
Casting (process)
: Bronze, cast, patinated
Patination
Accession number: M.23-2015
Primary reference Number: 201932
Old object number: 17
Stable URI
Owner or interested party:
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Associated department:
Applied Arts
This record can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:
The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024) "Tired Horse" Web page available at: https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/201932 Accessed: 2024-11-02 16:29:56
To cite this record on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:
{{cite web|url=https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/id/object/201932
|title=Tired Horse
|author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-11-02 16:29:56|publisher=The
University of Cambridge}}
To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:
https://collection.beta.fitz.ms/api/v1/objects/object-201932
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