Someone untie that man,
for God’s sake
What an extraordinary thing: the auction houses are still finding paintings of poor old Mazeppa and people are still buying them. Sotheby’s has this one by Thomas Woodward (1801-52) up for sale … and not for much, either.
I wonder what the owners of these artworks tell people when they’re asked, “Hey, what the hell is with this picture of a guy strapped to a horse?”
The back story’s a great one, of course, but it’s rather complicated. Maybe the owners just advise curious guests to look it up at Dali House, where the tale’s already been told.
Thomas Woodward was renowned for his paintings of noble steeds, so it came as a shock when he showed up at the Royal Academy in 1828 with this picture.
The art crowd of the day would nevertheless have been familiar with Byron’s tiresome poem “Mazeppa”, about the Ukrainian Cossack caught messing with a court official’s wife and being given suitably equine punishment.
Woodward was zeroing in on the bit in the poem that goes, “They snort, they foam, neigh, swerve aside / And backward to the forest fly.”
Hilarious. Still wouldn’t want it on my wall.
