Erection date: 12/2/2002
{Front of plinth:} Prince Henry the Navigator, 1394 - 1460.
{On the right side of the plinth:}
God wills, man dreams, the work is born.
God willed that the earth be one,
That the sea not divide but unite it.
Anointed by Him, you unveiled the foam,
And the white crest went from island to continent,
Like dawn to the world’s end,
And suddenly the entire earth
Appeared, round, from out of the blue.
Fernando Pessoa
{On a small plaque attached to the lower right side of the statue:}
Fundicao de arte de Canelas, LDA. {the founders}
The Duke of Westminster was present at the unveiling. From the speech made at the unveiling by the President of the Portuguese Republic we learnt that this is the first statue of a Portuguese personality to be erected in London. Its location is perfect, being opposite the Portuguese Embassy at 11 Belgrave Square.
However, the origin of this statue, erected more than fifty years after the sculptor's death in 1950, is somewhat mysterious. Why was it erected in 2002? Was it created especially for this location? If so, who funded it? If not, where did it come from? Copies can, and often are, made of statues but it is an expensive process.
Wikipedia 1 says that the original version of this statue was created in 1915 and a stone version was unveiled in 1932 in Vila Franca do Campo, São Miguel Island (one of the islands in the Portuguese Azores), to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the then-believed discovery of the Azores. The Azores Museum holds a life-size version in plaster, dated 1915. Photos of the one on São Miguel (Wikimedia) show it to be in white marble.
A bronze duplicate of the statue is located at Fall River, Massachusetts, but, oddly, is credited to the Italian-born American sculptor, Aristide Berto Cianfarani (1895-1960). The plaque at that statue says that it marks the eighth centennial of Portuguese national organization in 1140 and that it was “Erected by the people of Portuguese descent of New England and their friends on June 30, 1940.” Wikipedia 2 says that many of the Portuguese community in Fall River came from São Miguel. We can only think that those Portuguese people funded the creation of a copy of the statue on São Miguel and the process was overseen by Cianfarani.
But none of this answers the questions about the version in Belgrave Square.
Sources: Wikipedia 1, Azores Museum, Historical Marker Database, Wikipedia 2. And thanks to Mr Little for his research.
Site: Henry the Navigator statue (1 memorial)
SW1, Belgrave Square, Opposite West Halkin Street
Credit for this entry to: Alan Patient of www.plaquesoflondon.co.uk
Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them