The statue of George III, Somerset House, formally titled George III and the River Thames, [1] is a Grade I listed outdoor bronze sculptural group depicting King George III and Neptune or Father Thames, located in the quadrangle of Somerset House, London, England. [2] [3] The sculptor was John Bacon, [2] and the statue was erected between 1778 and 1789. [nb 1]
George III is dressed in Roman apparel, leaning on a rudder, flanked by the prow of a Roman boat and a lion. [3] Father Thames is reclining on a lower, semi-circular plinth, one hand on an urn with a cornucopia behind him. [3] [2]
When Queen Charlotte first saw the statue of her husband she asked the sculptor 'Why did you make so frightful a figure?'. Bacon bowed and replied 'Art cannot always effect what is ever within the reach of Nature – the union of beauty and majesty.' [6]
John Bacon was a British sculptor who worked in the late 18th century. Bacon has been reckoned the founder of the British School of sculpture. He won numerous awards, held the esteem of George III, and examples of his works adorn St Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey in London, Christ Church, Oxford, Pembroke College, Oxford, Bath Abbey and Bristol Cathedral.
Joseph Nollekens R.A. was a sculptor from London generally considered to be the finest British sculptor of the late 18th century.
Sir Francis Leggatt Chantrey was an English sculptor. He became the leading portrait sculptor in Regency era Britain, producing busts and statues of many notable figures of the time. Chantrey's most notable works include the statues of King George IV ; King George III (Guildhall), and George Washington. He also executed four monuments to military heroes for St Paul's Cathedral, London. He left the Chantrey Bequest for the purchase of works of art for the nation, which was available from 1878 after the death of his widow.
Somerset House is a large Renaissance complex situated on the south side of the Strand in central London, overlooking the River Thames, just east of Waterloo Bridge. The Georgian era quadrangle was built on the site of a Tudor palace originally belonging to the Duke of Somerset in 1547. The present Somerset House was designed by Sir William Chambers, begun in 1776, and was further extended with Victorian era outer wings to the east and west in 1831 and 1856 respectively. The site of Somerset House stood directly on the River Thames until the Victoria Embankment was built in the late 1860s.
Joseph Wilton was an English sculptor. He was one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768, and the academy's third keeper. His works are particularly numerous memorialising the famous Britons in Westminster Abbey.
Louis-François Roubiliac was a French sculptor who worked in England. One of the four most prominent sculptors in London working in the rococo style, he was described by Margaret Whinney as "probably the most accomplished sculptor ever to work in England".
Sir Richard Westmacott was a British sculptor.
Coade stone or Lithodipyra or Lithodipra is stoneware that was often described as an artificial stone in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was used for moulding neoclassical statues, architectural decorations and garden ornaments of the highest quality that remain virtually weatherproof today.
York House was one of a series of grand mansions that formerly stood on the Strand, the principal route from the City of London to the Palace of Westminster.
Prince Hoare was an English sculptor. "Prince" in this instance was a given name, not a royal title.
Sir Henry Cheere, 1st Baronet was an English sculptor and monumental mason. He was the older brother of John Cheere, also a notable sculptor.
Nicholas Stone was an English sculptor and architect. In 1619 he was appointed master-mason to James I, and in 1626 to Charles I.
John Hickey (1751–1795) was an Irish sculptor.
John Bacon (1777–1859), also known as John Bacon the Younger, or Junior, to distinguish him from his equally famous father, was an English sculptor.
Gheerart Janssen, later known as Gerard Johnson Sr., an English sculptor who operated a monument workshop in Elizabethan and Jacobean England and the father of Gerard Johnson the younger, who is thought to have created Shakespeare's funerary monument. He and Cornelius Cure became the leaders of the so-called Southwark school of monument design, which dominated the English market in the late-sixteenth century.
The statue of James II is a bronze sculpture located in the front garden of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Probably inspired by French statues of the same period, it depicts James II of England as a Roman emperor, wearing Roman armour and a laurel wreath. It originally also depicted him holding a baton. It was produced by the workshop of Grinling Gibbons. The execution was most likely, according to contemporary accounts, the work of the Flemish sculptors Peter van Dievoet from Brussels and Laurens van der Meulen from Mechlin, rather than of Gibbons himself. The statue has been relocated several times since it was first erected in the grounds of the old Palace of Whitehall in 1686, only two years before James II was deposed.
John Francis Moore was a sculptor who was active in late 18th century Britain. His works include two memorials in Westminster Abbey.
Artus Quellinus III, known in England as Arnold Quellin was a Flemish sculptor who after training in Antwerp was mainly active in London. Here he worked in partnership with the English sculptor Grinling Gibbons on some commissions. Some of the works created during their partnership cannot with certainty be attributed to Quellinus or Gibbons. The drop in quality of the large-scale figurative works in the workshop of Gibbons following the early death of Quellinus has been seen as evidence of the heavy reliance on Quellinus to produce such works.
Richard Hayward (1725–1800) was an 18th-century British sculptor. He has several works in Westminster Abbey.
A memorial to the Russian Tsar Peter the Great was erected in London in 2000 to commemorate the tercentenary of the Grand Embassy of Peter the Great. It stands at on Glaisher Street, in a corner of Deptford within the Royal Borough of Greenwich, beside the confluence of the River Thames and Deptford Creek.
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