Ross und Reiter Symbole der Macht

The baroque equestrian statue represented the power of the absolutist ruler, based on a pictorial tradition dating back to antiquity. After the French Revolution, this pictorial formula became obsolete. But then the equestrian portraits underwent a reinterpretation in the bourgeois age. What did equestrian portraits of men and women stand for, especially in the post-revolutionary period and in the restorative phase of Napoleonic rule? Renate Prochno-Schinkel traces the changing meanings. The cultural history of horses plays an important role in these iconographies of power. And many a political portrait has replaced the attribute of the horse with the car since the 20th century. Sculpted and painted representations, primarily in Europe and the USA, are analysed.