This was a piece I started at the '99 Marble Symposium in Marble Colorado. I spent 8 days carving there and learning from the other students and many teachers. Yule marble is one of the finer domestic stones, and was used to construct the pillars of the Lincoln Memorial among many other great monuments. I chose the taming of Pegasus for the project mainly because the stones pureness makes a perfect scene. I worked on this piece off and on, finally getting it to the point it's shown here in 2001.

Concept :

Bellerophon Taming Pegasus is a favorite mythic tale. I personally was inspired by the tale when I saw a medieval bronze at the Kunst History Museum in Vienna. My design is a scene of Bellerophon, Athena, Pegasus, and the chimera.

The story is that Bellerophon tamed Pegasus with the aid of a golden bridle given to him by Pallas Athena. The winged horse had sprung from the body of Medusa after her decapitation by Perseus. Riding Pegasus, Bellerophon performed many heroic deeds, foremost, the slaying of the chimera which had been ransacking Athens and Greece. When the hero sought to ascend to the heavens and become a god on Pegasus's back, however, he was thrown and was killed, while Pegasus ascended to the heavens and became a constellation.