Beschreibung:

(Five Centuries: Furniture, Paintings & Works of Art from 1600, 20th November 2019) THOMAS THORNYCROFT (1815-1885) QUEEN VICTORIA ON HORSEBACK bronze, dark brown patina, signed T. THORNYCROFT FECIT/ LONDON 1853 and inscribed ART UNION OF LONDON/ 1854 54cm high, 65cm wide approx. Arriving at the Great Exhibition in 1851 visitors were met in the central courtyard by a larger-than-life plaster statue of Queen Victoria on horseback by Thomas Thornycroft The composition, believed to be derived from an engraving of Victoria reviewing the troops at Chobham, was greatly admired by the sovereign and Prince Albert. Some critics however, felt this version, which showed Victoria in contemporary dress on her lively Arabian horse, too modern, with The Times reviewer going so far as to brand it ‘too anatomical’. Nevertheless, it was favoured by the Queen and used later with some alterations for a large bronze group to accompany an equestrian figure of Prince Albert outside St George’s Hall, Liverpool, completed in 1869. The Art Union of London commissioned Thornycroft to complete fifty statues in bronze, and awarded them as prizes between 1854 and 1859, of which the current lot is one. As part of the commission, he repositioned to horse’s legs, changing them from the plaster version shown at the Great Exhibition. Other examples are in the Royal Collection and the collection of the V&A. Thomas Thornycroft the son of a farmer, spent four years as an apprentice to the Sculptor John Francis, marrying his daughter Mary, also a sculptor, in 1840. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1839 and 1874 and made numerous large commissions, including Boadicea and Her Daughters on the Western end of Westminster Bridge, and a marble group Commerce for the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gallery.