William Shakespeare | |
---|---|
Artist | Giovanni Fontana after Peter Scheemakers |
Year | 1874 |
Medium | Marble |
Location | Leicester Square, London W1 |
Listed Building – Grade II | |
Official name | William Shakespeare Statue and fountain with busts of Hogarth, Hunter, Newton and Reynolds in garden of square |
Designated | 24 February 1958 |
Reference no. | 1221890 [1] |
A statue of William Shakespeare, by the sculptor Giovanni Fontana after an original by Peter Scheemakers, has formed the centrepiece of Leicester Square Gardens in London since 1874.
The marble figure, copied from Scheemakers's 18th-century monument to Shakespeare in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, [2] stands on a pedestal flanked by dolphins at the centre of a fountain. It is the result of improvements to the gardens made by the financier Albert Grant, who bought the Square in 1874 and had it refurbished to a design by James Knowles. [3]
The scroll held by Shakespeare is inscribed with a quotation from Twelfth Night (Act IV, Scene II), THERE IS NO DARKNESS BUT IGNORANCE, where the original in Poets' Corner has a misquoted passage from The Tempest . The Leicester Square statue also differs from its model in omitting portrait reliefs of Henry V, Richard III and Elizabeth I from the plinth on which Shakespeare rests. [2] The inscription on the pedestal in Leicester Square reads:
THIS ENCLOSURE/ WAS PURCHASED, LAID OUT/ AND DECORATED AS A GARDEN/ BY ALBERT GRANT ESQ[UI]RE M.P./ AND/ CONVEYED BY HIM ON THE 2ND JULY 1874/ TO THE/ METROPOLITAN BOARD OF WORKS/ TO BE PRESERVED FOR EVER/ FOR THE FREE USE AND ENJOYMENT/ OF THE PUBLIC [4]
The statue is listed at Grade II. [1] In 2012 it underwent restoration, [5] and the cleaning was completed – by Tom Brown of London Stone Carving Limited – and new water features added in 2014. [6]
Peter Scheemakers or Pieter Scheemaeckers II or the Younger was a Flemish sculptor who worked for most of his life in London. His public and church sculptures in a classicist style had an important influence on the development of modern sculpture in England.
William Calder Marshall ARSA was a Scottish sculptor.
John Henry Foley, often referred to as J. H. Foley, was an Irish sculptor, working in London. He is best known for his statues of Daniel O'Connell for the O'Connell Monument in Dublin, and of Prince Albert for the Albert Memorial in London and for a number of works in India.
William Shakespeare has been commemorated in a number of different statues and memorials around the world, notably his funerary monument in Stratford-upon-Avon ; a statue in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, London, designed by William Kent and executed by Peter Scheemakers (1740); and a statue in New York's Central Park by John Quincy Adams Ward (1872).
Richard Coeur de Lion is a Grade II listed equestrian statue of the 12th-century English monarch Richard I, also known as Richard the Lionheart, who reigned from 1189 to 1199. It stands on a granite pedestal in Old Palace Yard outside the Palace of Westminster in London, facing south towards the entrance to the House of Lords. It was created by Baron Carlo Marochetti, an Italian sculptor whose works were popular with European royalty and the nobility, though often less well regarded by critics and the artistic establishment. The statue was first produced in clay and displayed at The Great Exhibition in 1851, where it was located outside the west entrance to the Crystal Palace. It was well received at the time and two years later Queen Victoria and Prince Albert headed a list of illustrious subscribers to a fund that aimed to raise money for the casting of the statue in bronze.
The statue of Charles II is an outdoor sculpture of Charles II of England by the Danish sculptor Caius Gabriel Cibber, located near the centre of Soho Square in London. Once part of a late 17th century fountain, it was removed in the late 19th century to a private estate in Harrow before being restored to the square in the mid-20th century. It depicts the king in a standing pose on top of a low decorated pedestal. Although it has been the subject of restoration works, it is heavily eroded and in a poor condition.
The statue of Charlie Chaplin in Leicester Square, London, is a work of 1979 by the sculptor John Doubleday. It portrays the actor, comedian and filmmaker in his best-known role, as The Tramp.
A Grade II-listed bronze statue of Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, by John Tweed, stands in King Charles Street, Whitehall, London. The work was unveiled in 1912 outside Gwydyr House, also in Whitehall, and was moved to its current location in 1916.
A Grade I-listed statue of Queen Anne stands on a pedestal alongside the north wall of No. 15 Queen Anne's Gate in Westminster, London. It portrays the queen wearing a brocaded skirt and bodice and an open cloak with the insignia of the Order of the Garter; on her head is a small crown and in her hands she holds an orb and sceptre. The statue, carved from Portland stone, stands on a plinth of the same material with the inscription ANNA REGINA. The pedestal consists of a fat "engaged" cylinder with a flat volute on either side, each with scrolls adorned with carved flowers and leaves. Neither the sculptor's identity nor the exact date of the work are known, but it is probably of the early eighteenth century.
The statue of James Outram, a work by Matthew Noble, stands in Whitehall Gardens in London, south of Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade II listed structure.
In 1757, the actor David Garrick commissioned the sculptor Louis-François Roubiliac to make a full-size marble statue of William Shakespeare for Garrick's octagonal Temple to Shakespeare, erected near his villa beside the River Thames at Hampton, to the west of London. The sculpture cost 300 guineas and was installed at Garrick's temple in 1758; it remained there until it was bequeathed to the British Museum along with Garrick's books in 1779. The sculpture was transferred to the new British Library in 2005, where it is displayed on a new travertine plinth beside the main staircase in the main entrance hall.