Harris & Company, Boston, MA (attrib)
Antique Black Hawk Gilt Molded Copper Trotting Horse Weathervane.
c. 1880.
Not signed.
Hollow copper body with sheet copper mane and tail.
24"w x 18"h.
Excellent antique condition with an old gilt surface with traces of yellow paint and verdigris.
Wear and losses commensurate with age and usage; an old repair to the right front leg.
Provenance: Private Florida Collection.
The Mike Dale Collection.
Est. $3,000-$5,000.
Ship: $55

Offered is an antique weathervane figure of a trotting horse with an erect, muscular neck and flowing mane and tail modelled after the 19th century trotting horse Black Hawk.

Black Hawk (1833-1856) was an iconic figure of his time—a champion trotting horse and an influential Morgan Horse sire. The grandson of Justin Morgan, he was sired in April 1833 by Sherman Morgan and out of a handsome thoroughbred mare, jet black except for a stripe in the face. Black Hawk was a solid black stallion with no white markings, standing 15 hands high and weighing 1000 pounds at maturity. He was an exceptionally beautiful animal, a smoothly balanced horse with large eyes and noticeable nostrils, and his disposition, though spirited, was always kind. Black Hawk was trained to harness and had a natural, pure square trotting gate. According to his various owners, he was often driven 50 miles in one day. His career left him unbeaten in trotting exhibitions. A purse of $1,000 was claimed in 1842 in a five-mile race, and at age 10 he conquered all challengers at two miles.

Black Hawk was sold multiple times in his early years. In 1844 he was sold for $800 to his final owner, David Hill of Bridport, Vermont. While with Hill, from 1844 to 1856, Black Hawk sired 1,772 foals. Black Hawk commanded a stud fee of $100 when most of his contemporaries were only getting $2 or $3. At a time when transportation was challenging, owners of quality mares brought them on the long journey to Vermont—to Black Hawk—in droves.

It cannot be overstated what a prominent figure in popular culture Black Hawk was during his lifetime, comparable in fame to today's star athletes. By 1850 he had been featured in lithographs by Currier & Ives that were distributed widely, and was also immortalized in oil paintings and lithographs by Theodore Marsden, to name just two. So famous was Black Hawk that, when he died on December 1, 1856, his death was widely reported in many prominent journals and newspapers of the day. The New York Daily Tribune reported on December 3, 1856: "He possessed the character of the Morgan family of horses to an eminent degree. He was symmetrical, muscular and compact in his form, and his elastic style of action, speed, and endurance, qualities he imparted in a remarkable degree to his progeny, rendered him one of the most valuable stock horses ever owned in this country."

One early weathervane pattern of Black Hawk was created by Henry Leach in 1871-1872. The pattern was made of carved and painted wood and is now part of the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Leach's pattern was likely made from one of the early lithographic portraits of Black Hawk. Several manufacturers created iron molds of Black Hawk's likeness from which many copper weathervanes, like the one offered here, were produced.