EQUESTRIAN STATUE OF MARCUS AURELIUS AS A STARTING POINT FOR THE CREATION OF THE MONUMENT OF PRINCE JÓZEF PONIATOWSKI

Equestrian statues have been made since antiquity, and in Greece since the archaic period. The practice of erecting costly bronze and gilded statues of this type began to gain popularity in the Hellenistic period. The only Roman bronze statue to have survived almost intact is the one to Marcus Aurelius which had already been used as a model for new masterpieces since the Renaissance and reached its heyday in the nineteenth century. Józef Poniatowski died on October 1813 near Leipzig (Germany) in the Elster River. In 1814, a few months after his death, a fundraising campaign was begun to raise money to erect a monument in his honour. Despite the many ideas put forward, in 1817 Bertel Thorvaldsen was commissioned to make an equestrian statue of Prince Józef Poniatowski. In 1820, a final contract was signed with the Danish sculptor for a plaster model. The sculpture, cast in bronze, was ready in 1832, and was modelled on the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius from the Capitoline Museums in Rome, both with regard to its composition and the depiction of the figure and the horse.