Frederic Remington: The Broncho Buster, 1895 – Porcelain Art Mug

America 250 · Jubilee Edition

Frederic Remington (1861–1909) was twenty-five years old when he first travelled to the American West, and the experience transformed him. He returned repeatedly over the following two decades, working as a painter, illustrator, and — in the final years of his career — sculptor, to record a way of life he sensed was disappearing. The Broncho Buster, modelled in 1895, was his first bronze and remains his most celebrated work: a cowboy on a rearing horse, the rider leaning back against the animal's momentum, hat raised, the composition spiralling upward in a controlled explosion of energy. Remington solved the considerable technical challenge of balancing the bronze on two rear hooves by concentrating weight at the base and using the horse's tail as a third point of support.

The sculpture entered the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and has since been cast in numerous editions; copies have occupied the Oval Office of the White House under several administrations, lending it a peculiar double life as both fine art and political symbol. For Remington, the work was personal — an act of preservation as much as invention, made at the moment when the frontier he had documented was being absorbed into national mythology. The image reproduced here — bold, kinetic, resolved in silhouette — captures the bronze as it was meant to be seen: from below, against the sky.

This edition is released to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States. The Broncho Buster is one of the defining images of American identity — a nation that mythologised its own frontier almost as it lived it. At 250, that myth is still very much alive. The America 250 ribbon on this mug is a small acknowledgment of that moment.

Read the full story: The Last Cast

Fine porcelain, 10 oz — 104 mm high, 75 mm across the base. The image runs around the body; handle and rim stay white. Dishwasher and microwave safe.

Frederic Remington, The Broncho Buster, modelled 1895, revised 1909; this cast by November 1910. Bronze, 32¼ × 27¼ × 15 in. (81.9 × 69.2 × 38.1 cm). Bequest of Jacob Ruppert, 1939. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, acc. no. 39.65.45. Open Access, public domain.

Selected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.