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Holbeinpferd is a colloquial term for a horse-shaped sculpture in Freiburg im Breisgau. It has become increasingly famous due to numerous anonymous alterations.

In 1936, the sculptor Werner Gürtner (* 1907, † 1991) created the standing foal using concrete casting. Its height and length is 1,90m, it weighs about a ton and is property of the city of Freiburg. In the 1950s, the little horse was placed on the lawn between Hans-Thoma-Straße, Günterstalstraße and Holbeinstraße, which gave the horse its name

The horse as a canvas


Since the late 1980s, the schculpture has been carefully painted and decorated again and again by anonymous people. Formerly, this was only done at night but nowadays people also paint it during the day. While doing so, most people try to creatively emphasize a certain subject. The growing media interest kept encouraging strangers to repaint the horse. The idea to redecorate a sculpture in a contemporary way could have been inspired by the Manneken Pis located in Brussels, which has been treated in the same manner since the 17th century - today, however, under the supervision of an official.

One of the first and at the same time longest lasting paintings turned the horse into a zebra. Its appearance has been changing more frequently ever since. The Holbeinpferd has already been an inofficial advertising medium (e.g. for Milka, Nivea, Uhu), a public space for political messages (Brent-Spar-Boykott) and lover's vows. It was painted to look like it was wearing colours of flags, jerseys of soccer and cycling teams, as well as unicorn and pegasus applications. In 2003 it served as the donkey for the Bremer Stadtmusikanten. On occasion of the wrapping of the Reichstag (building) by Christo and Jeanne-Claude in 1995 the horse had also been wrapped. On a Holbeinpferd website there are already more than 120 variations of the horse's paintings recorded.

In the early 1990s, postcard series and photos of the horse in its various paintings were printed and TV-feeds were broadcast.

History
In 1936 the sculpture, which was still unsigned at the time, was sold to a private person who later sold it on to the gardening office of Freiburg. At the request of the then-mayor Wolfgang Hoffmann, Werner Gürtner added his signature in the 1950's. In the 1980's, the horse was restored three times and in June of 1987 it was painted brown, the way Gürtner had imagined it. This version was short-lived - the horse has since been repeatedly redesigned by anonymous people.

Legal battle over postcards
The community of heirs surrounding Elsa Gürtner, widow of the sculptor, sued a photographer who had earned money by publishing pictures and postcards showing the Holbeinpferd, to reveal his sales revenues. The 10,000 Deutsche Mark (approximately 6,700 USD) lawsuit was rejected by the Local Court of Freiburg in 1996, arguing that pictures of sculptures may be commercially used if the artwork is located on public ground (Freedom of panorama). Even though the suitors had appealed against the sentence, the Local Court of Mannheim upheld the previous decision to a large extend in 1997. However, they did grant the disclosure of sales revenues.

The only reason for the photographer to be sentenced was the use of image editing. In fact he gave the horse a look it never really had (a Santa Claus costume). The court emphasized that changing the art piece cannot be considered as a violation of the UrhG (Copyright law of Germany). The duplication and distribution of photographs of a work which display a phototechnologically altered appearance is however considered a violation.

Weblinks

 * Website about the Holbeinpferd with several images
 * Up-to-date pictures of the Holbeinpferd on fudder.de