This monumental fresco, painted by Paolo Uccello in 1436, was commissioned by the Republic of Florence to celebrate the Anglo-Saxon condottiere John Hawkwood (italianized as Giovanni Acuto), who had successfully led the Florentine troops and remained in their service until his death in 1394, after which he was buried with great honours in the city’s cathedral; forty years later, when, following a request from King Richard II of England, his remains were transferred to his native Sible Hedingham (a town in Essex not far from London), it was decided to create this enormous equestrian portrait ad memoriam, to be placed in the cathedral.
The sarcophagus, resting on corbels between which Hawkwood’s coats of arms are prominently displayed, is adorned with a plaque bearing the funerary inscription; above it, the captain, shown on parade wearing armour (but with a hat instead of a helmet), a sheathed sword, and holding his commander's baton aloft, rides a richly caparisoned horse; the figures are painted in "verdaccio" against a red background, using two different perspectival systems (the base is strongly foreshortened when viewed from below, whereas the horse and rider are depicted in a rigid frontal view) and are modelled with light and shade according to the actual illumination of the cathedral nave.
The idea of depicting the condottiere as a kind of "wall-mounted sarcophagus" represented in paint derives from the fourteenth-century funerary monument of another captain of fortune, Piero Farnese, also located in the cathedral and likewise consisting of a painted marble sarcophagus surmounted by a wooden equestrian portrait.
The artwork Equestrian Monument to Sir John Hawkwood is a masterpiece made via plaster and fresco techniques. In the picture above, an embossed artwork can be seen where the horse, whose one leg is raised and is wearing a red horseshoe, is perfectly adding to its beauty with grey fresco, and the man named Sir John Hawkwood can be seen over it, holding a brown stick, a cape, and a hat, rather than armor. The horse and the man are placed over a pedestal where some inscribing has been done about Sir John Hawkwood. The amazing border work has been done to make it look super beautiful with highly embossed details and the use of a golden tint in it, adding to its beauty. It gives a message of victory, pride, and growth.
