Provenance Walter Latendorf, New York. With dealer Edward Eberstadt and Sons, New York by 1959 [see note 1]. With Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., New York by 1965 [see note 2]; purchased by Dr. Harold E. Simon (1897-1982) and Mrs. Regina P. Simon (1899-1995), Birmingham, Alabama, 1965; gift to Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, 1968
1. Correspondence between Dr. Harold E. Simon and Lindley Eberstadt, Edward Eberstadt and Sons, New York indicates Simon was aware of this cast as early as May 1959. After a series of exchanges, Simon decides in a July 13, 1959 letter not to purchase the work, since it is a recast rather than an original; his deposit is returned in a July 17, 1959 letter from Charles Eberstadt. The letter from Eberstadt states, “Recasts of bronzes pose something of a problem and sometimes there is not much to go on other than the quality of the bronze itself and the hearsay gossip that passes in the trade. It was from this latter that we learned about Walter Latendorf’s recast of the Trooper of the Plains. Our information came from a person closely associated with Walter (a dealer here in New York who died several years ago) and he told us that Latendorf had with permission made four castings from the original mold in the 1920’s. It was his opinion that our example was one of these recasts and hence our second letter to you about it. My brother bought this example as an original cast based on its quality, which to him seemed equal to other examples he had seen and infinitely superior to several more recent examples which evidently have been faked, that is not made from the original mold but from a mold made from an example of the bronze itself.” See object file.
2. According to December 15, 1965 invoice from Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., New York. Henry D. Hill, Berry-Hill Galleries, New York reveals the Latendorf and Eberstadt provenance in an October 14, 1965 letter, months after Simon began paying installments and the work arrived in Birmingham. See object file.
