Statue

Frieze of Parnassus - Gainsborough

Erection date: 1872

Inscription

Gainsborough

Site: Albert Memorial & The Frieze of Parnassus (52 memorials)

SW7, Kensington Road

The monument, officially titled the Prince Consort National Memorial, celebrates Victorian achievement and Prince Albert's passions and interests. It was commissioned by Queen Victoria and designed by George Gilbert Scott, was built 1864-72, and the statue of Albert was installed in 1875. Even for a Victorian edifice the excess of decoration is extraordinary - we suspect the design suffered mission creep.

Marble figures representing Europe, Asia, Africa and America stand at each corner of the memorial. Each of these groups comprises an animal typical of that continent and a few noble but stereotypical people from the region.

On the Frieze of Parnassus are depicted 168 men, 1 woman and two dogs, gender unknown. The woman is Nitocris, a historically questionable pharaoh who, it is claimed, built the third pyramid at Giza.

The men are segregated by field of fame. Reading anticlockwise from the south-west corner: Armstead carved the south and east sides, populated with musicians, poets, musicians, painters, grouped by nationality; Philip carved the north and west sides with architects and sculptors, cleverly arranged chronologically so that the Egyptian architects turn the corner in the same space with Egyptian sculptors.

Remarkably the whole Frieze was carved on site. In the selection of the figures, only one exception to the "must be dead" rule was allowed: George Gilbert Scott himself. Actually only 167 men are represented, one of them twice: Michelangelo as a painter and again as a sculptor. The dogs are Hogarth's Trump and a generic greyhound associated with Veronese.

Normally one cannot get close enough to the Frieze to take satisfactory photos but in May 2017 we joined a tour of the monument which gave us the proximity needed. We photographed all the figures in the Frieze but have decided to publish only (with a few exceptions) those already on London Remembers. Many of the others are little-known outside their field and have no connection to London. See Wikipedia for the entire list and some good photos of the whole Frieze.

The monument has many other figures of an allegorical nature, which are well covered at The Library Time Machine. Another page at the Library Time Machine has some interesting photos of the monument under construction.

Ian Visits managed to get a tour of the usually inaccessible undercroft, the structure that supports this monument.

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This section lists the subjects commemorated on the memorial on this page:
Frieze of Parnassus - Gainsborough

Subjects commemorated i

Thomas Gainsborough

Born Sudbury, Suffolk.

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This section lists the subjects who helped to create/erect the memorial on this page:
Frieze of Parnassus - Gainsborough

Created by i

Henry Hugh Armstead

Sculptor and illustrator. Born Bloomsbury. Executed a large number of public ...

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This section lists the other memorials at the same location as the memorial on this page:
Frieze of Parnassus - Gainsborough

Also at this site i

Nearby Memorials

FCO - D unknown

FCO - D unknown

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The Foreign Office was completed in 1873 to the 1861 designs of Sir George Gilbert Scott, with Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt for the St James’s...

Robert Milligan statue - gone

Robert Milligan statue - gone

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This statue used to be at the main gate but was removed in 1943, presumably to avoid bomb damage. Reinstated here in 1997 by the Dockland...

1 subject commemorated, 1 creator
St Botolph’s - charity boy

St Botolph’s - charity boy

EC2, St Botolph’s Church Hall, Bishopsgate

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Imperial Hotel - statue 13

Imperial Hotel - statue 13

WC1, Russell Square

On this site there used to be a sister hotel to Hotel Russell, also designed by Charles Fitzroy Doll and erected in 1898. It was demolish...

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Disraeli statue

Disraeli statue

SW1, Parliament Square

Unveiled exactly two years after his death, this statue was central to the foundation of the Primrose League, an organisation formed to p...

1 subject commemorated, 1 creator