05-01-2017, 06:06 PM
Sam G,
A seahorse could of course be drawn from a specimen. Seahorses can get caught in fishing nets or wash up on the shore for example, and there was some experimentation with diving in the middle ages so... why not?.
As for older/foreign sources: the hippocampus can indeed be found in older and foreign art, but again this tends to be a capricorn-esque kind of creature, whether we consider Roman, Etruscan, Greek (see the many images of the seahorses which draw Poseidon/Neptune's chariot, or of Nereids riding hippokampoi: they are all horses of the sea).
As we move further East towards India and China the sea-horse is progressively subsumed by the figure of the sea-lion, which assumes the same capricorn-ish appearance, but with a lion's upper body, and the water dragon, which displays the long sinuous body typical for Chinese dragons.
Perhaps you will be luckier than me, but I could find only one more or less realistic representation of a seahorse:
Cordoba, Spain, mosaic from the Alcazar gardens.
This mosaic dates back to Roman times (2nd or 3rd C). It is visible in the Alcazar gardens today BUT was placed there in the 20thC. I don't know if/how/where it was visible during the middle ages.
![[Image: hippocampe-de-mosaque-20167302.jpg]](https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/x/hippocampe-de-mosaque-20167302.jpg)
A seahorse could of course be drawn from a specimen. Seahorses can get caught in fishing nets or wash up on the shore for example, and there was some experimentation with diving in the middle ages so... why not?.
As for older/foreign sources: the hippocampus can indeed be found in older and foreign art, but again this tends to be a capricorn-esque kind of creature, whether we consider Roman, Etruscan, Greek (see the many images of the seahorses which draw Poseidon/Neptune's chariot, or of Nereids riding hippokampoi: they are all horses of the sea).
As we move further East towards India and China the sea-horse is progressively subsumed by the figure of the sea-lion, which assumes the same capricorn-ish appearance, but with a lion's upper body, and the water dragon, which displays the long sinuous body typical for Chinese dragons.
Perhaps you will be luckier than me, but I could find only one more or less realistic representation of a seahorse:
Cordoba, Spain, mosaic from the Alcazar gardens.
This mosaic dates back to Roman times (2nd or 3rd C). It is visible in the Alcazar gardens today BUT was placed there in the 20thC. I don't know if/how/where it was visible during the middle ages.