This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Known for his sculptures of equestrian and animal sculptures, Herbert Haseltine was a highly successful artist who won much recognition during his lifetime.
He was based in New York City and modeled many race winners including Man O' War, a 3000 pound statue in Lexington, Kentucky. He also modeled draught horses and horses broken down by the War. For thirteen years, he worked on a collection of sculptures of various animals for the Field Museum in Chicago, having been hired by Marshall Field.
He was born in Rome, Italy, and during his childhood became an accomplished horseback rider and polo player. He came to the United States for education, and in 1899, graduated from Harvard University. He then studied art in Munich at the Royal Academy and the Julian Academy in Paris where his teacher was Aime Morot. Haseltine arranged for his horse, "Make Haste," to be sent to France to serve as his model. Some of his first successful sculptures were a group of polo players that he cast in 1906.
During World War I, he was a captain of Army Engineers and helped organize the camouflage section. In the mid-1920s, he made his first visit to India where he completed an equestrian statue of architect Sir Edwin Luylens at Jamnagar. There he also modeled horses including elaborately jeweled horses heads inspired by 17th and 18th century Indian miniatures. Funded by American heiress Barbara Hutton, the casting was completed in the late 1940s with diamonds, pearls, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, garnets and jade and rank as some of the most opulent sculptures ever produced by an American sculptor.
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Note from Marina Watteck, April 2005
I have found a picture of the famous two horseheads by Herbert Haseltine, who was my great-grandfather. As far as I know from family history, these two heads were especially done for Barbara Hutton and have disappeared after her death. They are gilded and covered with semi-precious stones.
The model for the horses heads was one of the most valuable stallions of the Maharadjah of Nawanagar, which he sent by ship and train to Paris including two personal caretakers. The horse stayed at the studio of my great-grandfather for several months, and was trained and ridden by an Hungarian aristocrat, who took the horse every morning out to the nearby Bois de Boulogne.
My grandmother, Countess Toggenburg, née Helen Heather Haseltine, told me, that people nearly fainted by the sight of the horse, because it was so exceptionally beautiful. However, I would very much like to know, if the original sculptures ever reappeared.
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