The Horse Tamer

I drove by Roslyn Park the other day and was stunned to see that a new statue has been installed in the park.  And what a statue!  Where did it come from?  So this gets just a bit complicated.  In 1898 an estate was built by John Mackay, who got his money from the Comstock silver lode, in Nevada.  He later went on to form AT&T.  The estate, Harbor Hills, was on the highest point on Long Island, and was 648 acres in size and had a mansion and gardens beyond imagining.  There were two statues of horses on the estate which are replicas of the Marly Horses commissioned by Louis XIV in Paris in 1649 and now located at the Louvre. Some of you may remember that I photographed a statue in two pieces outside a factory building a while back  That was one of the statues from the estate, which for years was at Roslyn High School.  That statue was badly deteriorated and missing the head of the man, and is being restored, which is why it was in several pieces in my photograph.    

This is a closer view of the same statue. It was left in place in the residential neighborhood, and also deteriorated.  The Landmark Society raised $100,000 for the restoration of this statue, and for its base.   Please click on it to see it in a larger size.  Now knowing it's heritage, I know why it is such a stunning piece of sculpture.  The father left the estate to the son, who died in 1938, and the magnificent mansion fell into disrepair and was dynamited in 1947, and the land sold to a developer, who build residential homes. At lease the statues survive.