Easter AD 2025

 Salvete Omnes,

Raphael Santi's Resurrection , currently in Brazil 

it is a beautiful Sunday - Easter Sunday 

happy Easter - wesolego Aleluja, Chrystus zmartwychwstał! Prawdziwie zmartwychwstał  - Χριστὸς ἀνέστη! Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη! 

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and a very interesting 1420s (XV century) northern German painting of Crucifixion, unknown master

. we can observe wide (woven?) cinches,  richly decorated bridles and tack,  dyed-leather large pommel and cattle saddles with skirts, rowel spur, long-leg ridding with heavy stirrups, and their riding attire of  the period. The gray stallion has his forelock gathered and tied up (Eastern or steppe fashion).

enjoy

Valete

Luigi I d'Este - tassels, bay horse and flowing scarf

 Salvete Omnes,

Luigi I d'Este one again 

here dear Luigi I carries a very long, narrowing towards the tip sword

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a very detailed portrait - a bay stallion, and plenty of tassels 

typically long-shanked burb-bit

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very nice riding boots with a spur of which we cannot see the tip 

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sort of Sassanian Persian or old Medieval chivalry

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splendid saddle with pistol holster and long-barreled pistol

enjoy

Valete

Wouwerman - a scene with a saddled horse and wagon

 Salvete Omnes,

three days to Christmas' Eve - we have to go get the Christmas tree today. 

while perusing Wiki Commons I came across this drawing by Philips Wouwerman - originally this artwork comes from the German state collection.  

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the saddled horse is interesting - long, strong legged and rather hunter-like, long tail and of a round belly, a picture perfect cavalry horse? 

here I colorized, gently, the saddle and his tack, and the huge 'mantelsack' (?) on the back of the pack horse.

 

nota bene the draft horse pulling this wagon carriage have some serious collars. 
enjoy

Valete

Portrait of a boy and his rocking horse - Stanislaw Seweryn Potocki

 Salvete Omnes,

New Year has started - lets pray it will be not worse than the 2022 - fingers crossed - :)

ad rem,
Polish National Museum in Warsaw has among his collections this painting -

 

and a closeup of this splendid equestrian figure

According to the Museum information it was painted circa 1788, our boy (most likely this boy, whose father was Stanislaw Szczesny Potocki ) in the most splendid daily costume of the Sarmatians (Polish patriotic nobility of those times and also of the conservatives- so to speak) - zupan, kontusz sash, sabre, a kolpak, red riding boots.
His rocking horse - looking very much like an  Oriental- Eastern- stallion or even the Old  Polish one - has a splendid bridle made in the fashion of old Polish with Ottoman styles of the previous 200 years, give it or take - eg Beliotto's Stanislaw Poniatowski Wola Election 1776 - two versions:  Warsaw NM & Poznan NM.

This was the swan song of the Old Polish horse tack as the army regulation soon forbade the ornate bridles and shabraques/czaprak for the officer's horse 1789 and 1791. And then in 1795 Poland was partitioned by Prussia, Austria and Russian empire, and thus ceased to exist until 1806, when our state resurfaced as Napoleonic Duchy of Warsaw etc, in the wake of Napoleonic armies crushing victories over the  Prussians.
ps
A presentation of children fashion as evidenced  in the National Museum collection - a file for download (in Polish)
Last year my friend Radoslaw Sikora authored  three articles about children games and plays in Old Poland - 1, 2, and 3.

Valete