STATUES

Oliver Cromwell

In 1895 the 5^th Earl of Rosebery's Liberal Party had 41 fewer seats than the Conservatives. It was able to pass business through the House with the aid of the Irish National Federation. The peer made the mistake of announcing his intention of erecting a statue of Oliver Cromwell in the Palace of Westminster's precincts. The proposal antagonised the Irish M.P.s and Rosebery's government fell soon afterwards. A general election was held. This saw the Conservatives elected to office.

A decade later the idea of a statue of Cromwell was revived. However, this time the Irish M.P.s welcomed the proposal. This was because it was stated that the statue would be placed in a sunken portion of the Palace grounds that was known as the Pit. That he should rest eternally in the Pit was welcomed.

At the time, Cromwell was a controversial figure for many Irish people because of the military expedition he had led to the country in 1649. Overwhelmingly, historians had painted this as being anti-Irish and anti-Catholic. This was not the case. His motivation to neutralise the existential threat that Royalists based in Ireland posed to the Parliamentarian cause. He had a profound belief in religious toleration and was of the view that Irish Catholics should practise their religion. However, this was to be done in private. This was because he had a profound distrust of the Irish Catholic clergy. Many of them had encouraged the massacring of their Protestant countrymen.

Location: The Palace of Westminster, Parliament Square, SW1A 0AA (purple, orange)

Eros

In 1893 the Sir Alfred Gilbert s-sculpted Angel of Charity was erected as a memorial to the social reformer the 7^th Earl of Shaftesbury. It is reputed that the statue faces the wrong way; there is reputed to have been a word/visual pun between the shaft of its arrow and the direction in which that arrow was meant to be pointing. The Angel swiftly acquired the pre-Christian nickname of Eros. In part, this derived from the fact that couples would arrange to meet by it.

Gilbert's style involved his drawing upon a range of traditions. His work was informed particularly by the medieval era. However, his execution was far more detailed and sumptuous that medieval sculpture tended to be.

Location: Piccadilly Circus, W1J 7BX (purple, brown)

16 Maida Vale, W9 1TE. Gilbert's studio.

See Also: LORD SHAFTESBURY; MENU

The Belgian Years

Gilbert was a pupil of the sculptor Sir Joseph Boehm.¹ He studied in Paris and Italy. While he living in Perugia, he was visited by the painter Lord Leighton, who commissioned him to create Icarus (1884). The resulting sculpture was held in high regard. When Gilbert returned to London, he was inundated with commissions. However, he proved to be a poor manager of his own financial affairs. He also had a tendency towards perfectionism that led him to destroy much of his own work.

In 1886 the government commissioned Gilbert to create Eros. In 1892 he was appointed to construct the tomb of the Duke of Clarence, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales. Gilbert found himself to be unable to finish the piece. His finances collapsed and the debt collectors were called in. In 1901 he fled to Bruges. He remained in exile there until 1926 when he was cajoled back to finish the tomb. King George V took pity and arranged for him to have a studio in Kensington Palace. In his final year he sculpted the memorial for Clarence's mother, Queen Alexandra, that was erected in opposite St James's Palace.²

¹. Boehm's other pupils included Princes Louise.

². Sir Alfred Gilbert's grandson was the avant-garde artist Stephen Gilbert, who achieved a European reputation while being little known in the U.K..

King Alfred

The statue of King Alfred in Trinity Church Square is very old. Some people believe it to be the oldest indigenous public statue in London. Its origins are mysterious. It probably came from a church.

Location: Trinity Church Square, SE1 4HU

Nelson Mandela

In 2007 Westminster City Council gave permission for a statue of Nelson Mandela to be erected in Parliament Square. The Mayor of London had wanted to erect it in Trafalgar Square.

Location: Parliament Square, SW1P 3JX (blue, turquoise)

Mars The Peace Maker

Canova disliked Napoleon because he had ended the Venetian Republic. He accepted a commission to sculpt the dictator in order to have an opportunity to try to ask for his home city's circumstances to be improved. During his sketching sessions he found that his requests fell upon death ears. He returned to Italy where he created the flattering, near nude, 3.5m.-tall Mars The Peace Maker. The completed work was put on public display at the Mus e Napoleon in Paris. It was several years before the subject saw it. When he did, he disliked it, stating that it looked too athletic. It was removed from public views.

In 1816 the Prince Regent paid 3000 for the statue and presented it to the 1^st Duke of Wellington.

Location: Apsley House, 149 Piccadilly, W1J 7NT (red, brown)

Website: www.wellingtoncollection.co.uk/collection-category/sculpture www.apsleyhouse.org.uk

Lord Napier

Field Marshal Lord Robert Napier spent most of his martial career in India, working as a military engineer; he laid out the hill station of Darjeeling. In 1842 he was the general who commanded the Indian Army force that defeated the Baluch army at the Battle of Meeanee. This was followed by British India's annexation of Sind (now in western Pakistan). After the encounter, Napier is reputed to have sent a telegram that consisted of just one word - Peccavi (the Latin for I have sinned ). (This story was the invention of a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl.)

Location: Queen's Gate, SW7 5EH¹ (blue, yellow)

¹. In taxi slang Queen's Gate is known as Under The Orse's Tail .

The National Gallery Statues

The statue that stands in front of the eastern wing of the National Gallery is of George Washington, a not altogether successful frontier commander¹ who engaged in some personal job creation by depriving Britain of some of her remoter provinces.

The figure in front of the institution s western portion is of King James II. His presence owes more to the artistry that the sculptor Grinling Gibbons exercised in executing his image rather than to any popular partiality for a monarch who fled his own realms during the Revolution of 1688.

How many other nations are there that have one of their foremost cultural establishments fronted by both a rebel and a fugitive?

Location: Trafalgar Square, WC2N 5DS (red, grey) (red, blue)

Website: www.nationalgallery.org.uk/about-us/history/sculptures-and-mosaics?viewPage=3

¹. Washington's misadventures in the Ohio Valley had been one of the reasons why Britain had been drawn into the Seven Years War of 1756-63.

Nudity

The Park Lane Achilles

The Richard Westmacott sculpted statue of Achilles (1822) was erected in the south-eastern corner of Hyde Park to honour the Duke of Wellington, the victor of Waterloo. His grace lived in Apsley House to the south of the site. The figure was made from captured French guns that had been melted down. It was one of the first nude public statues to be erected in England, and, upon its unveiling, the work rather dismayed the group that had commissioned it.

Location: Hyde Park, W2 2UH (orange, white)

Zimbabwe House

What is now Zimbabwe House (1907) was redesigned by Charles Holden for The British Medical Association. On its second storey fa ade there are The Ages of Man, a series of sculptures that were created by Jacob Epstein. It was the American's first high profile commission in Britain. There was an initial outcry about the nudity of the figures, however, these concerns were soon placated. In 1937 the South Rhodesian High Commission took over the building. The sculptures then underwent some radical amendments. It was claimed that they had suffered frost damage which meant that there was a danger of passers-by being struck by a falling appendage, and that the changes had been made in order to try to avert such an eventuality.¹

Location: 429 Strand, WC2R 0JR (orange, grey)

See Also: WEATHER

¹. Epstein's portrayal of genitalia on London Transport's Broadway House also generated controversy, as did Eric Gill's work on Broadcasting House.

Trafalgar Square

Website: www.london.gov.uk/about-us/our-building-and-squares/trafalgar-square?source=vanityurl

The Fourth Plinth

Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth (1841) was intended to support an equestrian statue of King William IV. However, the effigy was not placed upon it and for many years the structure remained unburdened.

In 1996 the Royal Society for the Arts announced that over the following five years five statues would each spend twelve months upon the empty plinth in the north-western corner of Trafalgar Square The Cass Sculpture Foundation gave its support to the idea. In 1999 Mark Wallinger's Ecce Homo became the first work of art to be erected upon the plinth. For the most part, the contemporary statues that were mounted on it generated considerable comment. In 2003 in the Greater London Authority stated that Londoners would be allowed to select a new work of art for the plinth in Trafalgar Square.

In 2005 responsibility for the square was transferred to the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority.

Location: Trafalgar Square, WC2N 5DS (red, pink)

See Also: TRAFALGAR SQUARE

Website: www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/arts-and-culture/current-culture-projects/fourth-plinth-trafalgar-square/fourth-plinth-past-commissions www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/shorthand/fourth_plinth

David Backhouse 2024