A story
The Broncho Buster, in bronze
Frederic Remington's The Broncho Buster at the Metropolitan Museum is dated 1895, revised in 1909, and cast by November 1910. Roman Bronze Works made the cast. Jacob Ruppert bequeathed it to the museum in 1939.
What the record says
The Metropolitan Museum's Open Access record for object 11859 is public domain. The title is The Broncho Buster. The artist is Frederic Remington, American, Canton, New York, 1861–1909 Ridgefield, Connecticut. The object date is 1895, revised 1909, cast by November 1910. The medium is bronze. The dimensions are 32 1/4 by 27 1/4 by 15 inches. The founder is named: cast by Roman Bronze Works. The credit line is the bequest of Jacob Ruppert, 1939. The accession number is 39.65.45. The department is The American Wing, gallery 765. The tags are men and horses.
Those lines are the whole label. They separate three moments that a single date would blur. Remington modeled the subject in 1895. He revised it in 1909, the year he died. The bronze the museum owns was cast by November 1910, after that revision, at Roman Bronze Works. It did not enter the Met until Jacob Ruppert's bequest in 1939. A print of this photograph is a print of that cast, not of every Broncho Buster that left a foundry under the same title.
A small bronze, a tall plate
Thirty-two inches is a tabletop sculpture. The photograph treats it as a monument. The plate in the shop is a studio view: grey ground, the horse reared, the rider up in the stirrups, the base running to the bottom edge of the negative. Nothing in the Met record narrates the ride. It does not name a battle, a ranch, or a later owner beyond Ruppert. The honest caption is the accession line. Modeled 1895. Revised 1909. Cast by November 1910 by Roman Bronze Works. Bronze. Bequest of Jacob Ruppert, 1939. Public domain.
Remington's life dates sit on the same record: born in Canton, New York, in 1861, died in Ridgefield, Connecticut, in 1909. The revision and the death fall in the same year. The cast followed, at Roman Bronze Works, and was finished by November 1910. The museum's ownership began with Jacob Ruppert's bequest in 1939. Hang it with the number 39.65.45 in mind. That is how this particular horse is told from the others.
The record is also a list of things it does not say. It does not call the bronze his first sculpture. It does not name a buyer from 1898, a ranch, or a room in the White House. Those stories get attached to the title elsewhere. They are not on object 11859, so they are not on this page. What is on it is enough to identify the metal: a bronze a bit over 32 inches high and 27 inches wide, 15 inches deep, modeled in 1895, revised in the year Remington died, cast the next year by a foundry the museum names, and given in 1939.
The photograph is the museum's own. The Open Access record's primary image is file DP227346, the same plate the shop prints. It is a tall studio view of a small group. The grey ground is the photographer's backdrop. The base of the bronze runs to the bottom of the plate. Gallery 765. Public domain. Nothing older or larger that happens to share the name The Broncho Buster is this accession. The artist line is worth reading again because it is easy to skip: Canton, New York, 1861, to Ridgefield, Connecticut, 1909. The bronze was revised in the year of his death and cast, by a foundry the label names, before November of the next year. Then it waited until 1939 to become the Met's.
