On Wednesday I made a flying visit to Winchester to study Alfred Gilbert's Monument to Queen Victoria, started in 1887. The monument was originally sited at the end of the High Street but suffered vandalism and was dwarfed by Hamo Thornycroft's huge statue of King Alfred, so was moved to Winchester Great Hall (also the home of a round table, reportedly belonging to King Arthur).
Queen Victoria unobtrusively occupies a corner of the Great Hall, no mean feat for an over life-size monument on an enormous pedestal. Visitors, here to see the famous Round Table, seem surprised and intrigued to encounter one of our best known monarchs, but there is little explanation or interpretation of this very fine example of Gilbert's work.
The monument was considered to have set a new standard for sculptural images of the Queen. There are several other casts (in Newcastle and Australia) and the format and general look of the monument were very influential. The complex iconography aroused much debate in the periodical press and can clearly be connected to other works throughout Gilbert's career.
Of course I was particularly interested in Victoria's dress. Although the clothing she wears is fairly conventional, a silk dress with full skirt, the garter sash and then an ermine cloak, the way it tightly pulls across and folds and unfolds around the body seems unstable and dynamic. I'm still trying to think what this might mean and why it is important. Hopefully it will become clearer when I start to compare it to Gilbert's other works such as the Clarence Memorial.
I took one hundred and seven photos of the sculpture so I thought I'd share a few more of them with you.
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