My Luan

 

Sometimes you just want to show off a new horse.  In December I hadn't bought a horse since BreyerFest.  Even during Christmas on Mane Street I only bought tack.  When I saw this chestnut beauty offered on FB for a cut-rate emergency sale, there arose within me a surprisingly strong incentive.

This is Luan, the first Traditional-size sculpture from Eva Rossiter of Ireland.  He is painted in oils by Lauren Ball.  Eva is known to Breyer-land as the sculptress of the Stablemate Irish Draft (Corbin).   But she came to my attention with her absolutely beautiful sculpture Stromness, whom I had purchased back in 2023.

I did a blog post about this horse here.  Eva started sculpting in 2014 with smaller scale horses, but by 2017 she had turned out Luan, of which only 30 copies exist in Trad.  (There are 50 SM-scale Mini-Luans out there.)  Other works by her include the stunning Galliant, the small Ronan, the Stablemate scale Brona, Meyer Lemmon, a Classic scale Unicorn Ora, and lately the amazing Florenity (amoung many more).  Here is a link to a list of her work:  Resin Horse Editions: Eva Rossiter.   Sadly, her own website, Rytherial, does not list all her past sculptures, although it once did.

I have always been intrigued by Luan.  Originally I thought he was a Welsh Cob.  Then I learned he was supposed to be an Arab or Half-Arab.  His large head and neck, and relatively slender hindquarters, lend themselves to a near-perfect Morab.  He had lovely conformation which spoke to me at once, plus a quiet air and calm pose that whispered "driving pony!"  I always wanted one, but with the realization that this was an extremely limited run and I surely could not find one; or if I did find one, he would not be affordable.

Sometimes you just have to say Thank heaven for emergency vet bills,... !

As the blog post tells, my Stromness was named Easter, after a character in a Molly Keane novel.  Molly Keane was an intensely Irish author, and somehow what small percentage of Irish blood there is in me responded tremendously to her writing.  (Heck she's just really good.)  I purchased Luan on Christmas Day, 2024.  Staring at his red chestnut coat, it came to me that this was his name:  Christmas.

As it turned out I bought another and far more expensive horse just two days after Luan.  But that is another story.