Equestrian statue is a sculpture of a rider on horseback — historically reserved for emperors, generals, and saints as the highest civic honour.
The equestrian statue has, since antiquity, signified the highest form of public commemoration. The bronze equestrian Marcus Aurelius (c. 175 CE), the only surviving large-scale Roman bronze equestrian monument, escaped destruction during the Christian Middle Ages because it was misidentified as Emperor Constantine. Donatello's 'Gattamelata' in Padua (1453) was the first monumental equestrian bronze cast in the Renaissance. Verrocchio's 'Bartolomeo Colleoni' in Venice (1480s) and Bernini's marble equestrian Constantine in St Peter's (1670) extended the tradition. Falconet's 'Bronze Horseman' in St Petersburg (1782), commissioned by Catherine the Great to honour Peter the Great, gave Russia its national symbol. Modern equestrian monuments have struggled with their imperial associations: in recent decades many have been removed or contextualised, but the form remains the most demanding test in figurative sculpture, requiring the resolution of two complete anatomies in a single moment of arrested motion.