There’s a sweet little vest-pocket park tucked off Sutton Place at the end of East 57th Street.
Besides the quiet East River view, the park has another magnificent, little-known feature: a statue of a wild boar, cast in bronze, sitting on a granite pedestal along with snakes, crabs, salamanders, and other creatures.
If the boar looks familiar, you may have seen it in Italy. There, Renaissance sculptor Pietro Tacca’s bronze Porcellino (“piglet”) decorates a fountain in Florence.
Tacca based his much-loved boar (below), whose snout is rubbed for good luck, on an ancient Greek marble original discovered in Rome in the 16th century.
The Sutton Place boar is a copy of that replica, installed in 1972 by a neighborhood philanthropist who also donated the bronze Peter Pan statue to Carl Schurz Park, about 30 blocks north along the East River.
This wild boar is a powerful piece of animal art, one of many across the city.
Of course, it’s not exactly a cuddly sculpture for kids—especially on the base, where there’s a bronze snake munching on a mouse!
Tags: animal sculptures New York City, Il Porcellino, Pietro Tacca Porcellino, Porcellino fountain Florence, Small parks in New York City, Sutton Place Park, Vest Pocket Parks NYC, Wild Boar Sutton Place
January 2, 2013 at 4:21 am |
Love it. I have faithfully ‘snout rubbed’… Good luck does ensue
January 2, 2013 at 4:24 am |
Good to know! After researching this, I’m dying to visit Florence.
January 24, 2013 at 1:09 am |
After having this statue in our neighborhood 57th St park for years, we traveled thousands of miles to visit Florence and were led by a written description in a guidebook unknowingly to the original statue! Not a letdown but rather ironic.
August 10, 2013 at 12:38 pm |
[…] It was a copy of a Greek marble sculpture found in Rome in the 16th century. This porcellino was donated by a neighborhood philanthropist and lords over Sutton Park Place on East 57th […]
November 2, 2016 at 10:42 pm |
Amusing…I found a copy of this sculpture in front of a Tokyo structure called the “Pigeon Building.”
May 10, 2020 at 4:56 pm |
[…] long tights. In May. Why? Who says art is boar-ing? […]
June 15, 2023 at 10:52 pm |
I love that park. I spend a lot of precious time there…looking out at the East River views.