Kamp med en slange

Kamp med en slange stands in Copenhagen’s King’s Garden, also known as Kongens Have, among outdoor sculptures. The bronze scene shows a Native American rider on horseback confronting a large snake. The snake coils around the horse’s legs while the rider raises a spear.

English sculptor Thomas Brock created the work in 1881, during nineteenth-century European fascination with North American Indigenous themes. Its dramatic arrangement explores struggle, nature, and heroism through a symbolic scene rather than a recorded legend. Bronze captures the horse’s muscles, the rider’s clothing folds, and the snake’s scales. Brock lived from 1847 to 1923 and became known for public sculpture.

King’s Garden reaches back to the early seventeenth century and includes monuments from several periods. Greenery frames the figures, making the coiled snake and poised spear easy to notice. The sculpture’s base carries a plate with the artwork and artist details, though visibility varies.