This is the first bronze cast made of this sculpture. An unpopular subject, implying the impending extinction of the cowboy (Remington had seen a man killed this way), only six early sand-cast bronzes of this work are known to exist. Four subjects (The Bronco Buster, 0827.34, The Wounded Bunkie, 0826.35, The Wicked Pony, 0827.36, and The Scalp, 0827.37) were sand cast at Henry-Bonnard before Remington moved to the Roman Bronze Works where only one further cast was made of this work. Although sculptor Paul Bartlett worked with Henry-Bonnard to successfully cast one of his own works in lost wax and had served as liaison for the company’s hiring of French foundry workers, Remington’s jump to the Roman Bronze Works indicates that Henry-Bonnard had little continuing success with lost wax. They continued making sculpture by sand casting until 1926.

From the exhibition:Frontier to Foundry: the Making of Small Bronze Sculpture in the Gilcrease Collection, December 2014 - March 2015.
Ann Boulton Young, Associate Conservator for the Gilcrease Museum, 2014.

This bronze, cast number 1, is a lifetime cast.

Ann Boulton Young, Associate Conservator for the Gilcrease Museum, 2018