JANUARY 2003-FEATURE ARTICLE
RIDING THE TRAIL OF THE PHARAOH'S HORSES
by Palmer Utterback
Pharaoh's Horses has been a tattoo design since the turn of the 20th century. Where do such designs come from? How do they work their way into the tattoo business? Any working tattooist can tell stories about customers who bring in designs to have tattooed on their bodies. In the case of Pharaoh's Horses, perhaps a customer brought the image into the shop or a tattooist saw a print and drew it up as a tattoo design. Much like the chicken and the egg, it is hard to say which came first. But what can be said with certainty is that the design stuck. Historic flash and early-20th-century photographs document the image's popularity for nearly 100 years. The image has been copied, reworked and passed around for so long that its origin is not widely known. There is credible evidence that Pharaoh's Horses was first painted in the 18th century; however, not all art experts agree, which makes for an intriguing tale.
The story of Pharaoh's Horses begins with the puzzling existence of two nearly identical paintings. One version is by a well-known British painter, the other by an unknown artist. Which painting is older? Is it the version by the famous Brit? Or could it be the unsigned painting discovered at a Missouri flea market in the fall of 1987?
The widely circulated image, Pharaoh's Horses, is based on an 1848 painting by British sporting and animal painter John Fredrick Herring Sr. As a young man, Herring was a stagecoach driver in northern England. By the time of his death, in 1865, he was a highly successful artist known to King George IV and later Queen Victoria. In the British art journal of the time, Pharaoh's Horses was listed as one of Herring's most popular images. The image found its way into many American and European homes by the late-1800s as a mezzotint engraving. His painting is a circular composition of three white, charging Arabian horses. This painting was thought to be the oldest rendition of Pharaoh's Horses when it auctioned at Christie's in London for $445,500 in 1986.
Discovered at a Flea Market
In the fall of 1987, while searching for a good deal at a flea market, Randy Tyree, a painter and art enthusiast from Lislie, Missouri, came across an old square-shaped oil painting of three white Arabian horses charging into a stormy sea. He purchased the painting for $25. Though the painting was unsigned, he sensed it was an important find. To learn of the image's identity, he sent a photograph to Christie's auction house in New York for an appraisal. He was told that he had an old copy of the painting titled Pharaoh's Horses by J.F. Herring Sr. Tyree didn't accept the opinion that his painting was a copy. So, for the next five years he fought a difficult uphill battle to establish the painting's age and origin.
But how does one establish the age of an unsigned painting of undetermined origin? There is a field of forensic research dedicated to the study of paint pigments and cloth fibers. Dr. Walter McCrone of the McCrone Research Institute in Chicago, Illinois, is one of the world's top pigment and fiber analysts. He is commissioned by institutes such as the Louvre to examine and date works said to be by artists such as Rembrandt and Manet. He became well-known for his examination of the Shroud of Turin and a carpet-fiber analysis that led to a conviction in the 1982 Atlanta "child murders." Dr. McCrone tested the unsigned painting and concluded, "Most of these pigments were known before 1300. Only Van Dyke brown and Prussian blue date from 1700. This, plus the absence of 19th and 20th century (paints), strongly suggests an 18th-century date. The fact that the canvas is hand-woven further supports this conclusion."
Experts Have Their Say
Tyree took the unsigned painting to England where Herring & Sons art historian, the Honorable Oliver Beckett, examined it. He wrote to Tyree, "It certainly looks as though you have acquired the painting which may have inspired J.F. Herring." So the unsigned painting purchased at the Missouri flea market may be up to 100 years older than the "original" Herring version of Pharaoh's Horses! However, it must be said: Dating the unsigned painting to the 18th century is controversial. A number of art experts do not accept the scientifically derived date. Christie's, for example, still claims that the Herring Sr. painting is the original.
While both paintings feature three identically posed white Arabian horses, the mood projected by the two versions is somewhat different. The charging horses convey a sense of power, motion and fear in both paintings; however, the impression of impending doom is more pronounced in the unsigned version. The unsigned version depicts the horses being overcome by a stormy sea, while the water appears almost placid in the Herring version. Another difference is in the shape of the canvas. The Herring version is circular with a 30-inch diameter; the unsigned version is a 24x24-inch square. The Herring version has been widely circulated since the mid-1800s, while the unsigned version is not known to have been circulated until presented as a limited-edition lithograph by Tyree in 1999.
The artist of the unsigned version of Pharaoh's Horses is still unknown, however, Tyree traced the painting to the Mossop family of England. In 1915, the Mossops immigrated to the United States, bringing the painting with them from Disington, Cumbria, in northern England, where they owned a tavern and livery stable. The painting hung in the tavern for many years. It is tempting to speculate that Herring, known to have driven stagecoaches in northern England, may have seen the painting somewhere in the area during his travels. Descendants of the Mossops brought the painting to the flea market where it was purchased in 1987.
Though engravings of Herring's Pharaoh's Horses has been widely circulated for some 150 years, the name of the artist and country of origin have remained obscure. This is because prints often did not credit the artist or, in at least one case, credited the incorrect artist. For example, there is a popular print currently in circulation that seems to be attributed to Rosa Bonheur. A framed engraving of Pharaoh's Horses, referred to as "horse heads," was sold for 75 cents in the 1902 Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog. Adding to the general confusion for well over 100 years, unauthorized images were copied and used in the ubiquitous fashion of modern-day clip art. Also, the painting remained in private ownership, and was not widely accessible to the general public for over 100 years prior to its auction at Christie's in 1986. Herring's painting did make an appearance as a color reproduction in the Christie's Review of the Season 1986, a publication of limited distribution. In 1986, the painting was quickly auctioned and again disappeared into private ownership.
Pharaoh's Horses has been known as an engraving and marketing logo in America since the Civil War. The image was sold in the 1902 Sears catalog, whereupon, it's safe to say, it found its way into many homes across the country. In the tattoo business, the image has been a back- and chestpiece staple for nearly 100 years. The earliest example of Pharaoh's Horses in the Tattoo Archive is from the Gus Wagner (1872-1941) Collection. This design is seen in reverse of the original, and the horse heads are framed with leaves and flowers. By the 1920s, Pharaoh's Horses was showing up in tattoo suppliers' catalogs alongside other classics like the Rock of Ages and the Last Supper. Both images, like Pharaoh's Horses, came to tattooing via the religious-art world.
The list of tattooists and attractions who wore this design reads like a who's who of American tattooing, including Max Bohm, Tommy Tomasulli, Jay Lester, Andy O' Henry, Capt. Don Leslie, Sailor Carl, Bertie, Captain Elvy and none other than the famed New York City tattooist Charlie Wagner, who wore this design on his chest.
Percy Waters (1888–1952) probably did more to spread the Pharaoh's Horses design than any single person in the tattoo world. He sold the design in his supply catalog, and photos of his tattooed version of the image abound. Waters liked this image so well that he used it on the cover of his how-to-tattoo booklet. George Fosdick (1885–1951) also had a fondness for the Pharaoh's Horses design. Several photos and drawings in the Tattoo Archive Collection show his renderings of the image.
The three charging steeds of Pharaoh's Horses have endured since the 18th century, and now as the image enters the 21st century, it seems to be blessed with a longevity that shows no sign of diminishing anytime soon.
Horses in the Bible
In biblical times, horses were a symbol of wealth, status and, in warfare, power. A joint German-Egyptian archeological team has reported a discovery of horse stables, which housed over 400 horses, on the edge of the Nile Delta. The stables have been linked to pharaoh Ramses II who ruled more that 3,000 years ago. Such stables presumably boarded war horses similar to those used to draw the pharaoh's chariots in pursuit of the Israelites into the Red Sea. While the galloping steeds of Pharaoh's Horses convey a sense of power, majesty and grace, the implied reference to Exodus 14 suggests a symbolic warning against the singular pursuit of a tragic course without regard to the consequences: "The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived (Exodus 14:28)." In this vein, Pharaoh's Horses could be seen as a thematic variation of the Sailor's Grave tattoo image.
Why did I choose Pharaoh's Horses as a tattoo? To me, Pharaoh's Horses symbolizes the struggle and triumph of the human spirit over oppression. In Exodus the Hebrews were slaves fleeing from bondage. Pharaoh pursued them into the Red Sea where the Hebrews decisively won their freedom, and Pharaoh lost his entire army. The human spirit desires to be free. When confined, it is a force to be reckoned with. Its power has moved oceans, defeated armies and brought down empires. I had Pharaoh's Horses tattooed on my chest as a show of respect for the human spirit and to tap into its power.