Rosamonde Pinchot is a woman of great warmth, sly humor, and a gifted artist. She relocated to Milford, PA, 4 years ago after living in Paris the majority of her life and travel the world doing what she loves the most: working with horses.
The Pinchot name is very familiar to most people in the tri-state area. One of her paternal ancestors was an officer in Napoleon’s army. On her mother’s side, her grandfather, a famed automobile and airplane manufacturer, designed the first circular flight plane to become airborne in the world.
Rosamonde’s great uncle, Gifford Pinchot, was the renowned 28th governor of Pennsylvania and the first chief of the U.S. Forest Service after it was established in 1905. Gifford enjoyed a close relationship with President Theodore Roosevelt, who shared Pinchot’s passion for the conservation of natural resources.
Born in Paris to an American father and a French mother, Rosamonde shares the Pinchot commitment to conservation. But it is her love of both horses and art that led her into a quite fascinating life with a career in sculpting and jewelry making.
Her attraction to horses developed at a young age, when she thoroughly enjoyed riding with her family and friends.
In France, she became one of that country’s first female jockeys. Since she was a child, she was drawn to not just riding horses, but to bringing them to life through her art. She paints, draws, and has made exotic jewelry throughout her life, and to this day remains sculpting horse.
Her paintings (she appears to be fondest of Peonies, which she created in pastels) have earned great respect, and her fine craft of jewelry making has also gained renown over the years. Her specialties, equine and African wildlife pendants and brooches in silver, gold, and precious stones, were sold in Cartier, Neiman Marcus, and Dunhill of London catalogs in the past. Rosamonde’s horse sculptures have been featured and sold at the Harness Racing Museum and Hall of Fame in Goshen, the Cartier Store in New York, museums and fine art galleries galleries at the Rockefeller Collection and the Empire Galleries, the Altermann Galleries in Dallas, The Peck Gallery in NYC, and several galleries throughout California.
Rosamonde relishes telling stories about “her vivid family,” and her home is filled with family photographs and cherished albums. Aunt Rosamond, after whom she was named, was a well-known American socialite and stage and film actress. One of her great uncles was Stephane Mallarme, a French poet and translator of Edgar Allan Poe’s works.
“I’ve lived in Paris, New York, Nigeria, California, and other places,” she explains. “Who would have thought I’d end up in Milford, where my family enjoyed so many good times at the house! The “house” is Grey Towers, the Pinchot family’s summer estate, now a National Historic Site. “I met Great Uncle Gifford and his wife Cornelia for the first time at Grey Towers.” She smiles and laughs as she continues, “I was introduced first to Gifford, who then proceeded to introduce me to Aunt Cornelia, who was reclining on a couch in the great room before looking toward me. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ replied Cornelia, ‘Rosamond is dead,’” referring to her actress aunt, who died in 1938.
Her aunt’s name was spelled Rosamond, but her mother decided she should be named the more “French Rosamonde”. Her name originally combined the Germanic elements hros, meaning horse, and mind, meaning mud. So it’s only appropriate that Rosamonde works with horses and mud.
The “Pinchot Horse” by Rosamond Pinchot is a bronze statue celebrated for its dynamic portrayal of equine strength and elegance, commissioned by the Hanover Shoe Farms Foundation for the Harness Racing Museum in Goshen, New York.
“We’re here only once, I say, make it fun.”
“I am thinking, I am thinking…”
