Left: The Angel of the Resurrection. Right: The Angel of Death.

Angels at the West Door of the Albert Memorial Chapel, Windsor. Joseph Edgar Boehm. The Angel of the Resurrection carries a victor's wreath, and the Angel of Death contemplates a skull. In their book of photographs of the chapel, taken with a view to showing the work there of Henri de Triqueti, Jane and Margaret Davison write: "These statues occupy niches on each side of the west door. They were the last works of the artist [i.e., Triqueti], being unfinished at the time of his death" (comment of Plate IV, which shows these photographs). However, it is not clear how much of their design is Triqueti's. Eion Martin says they were "produced” by Boehm rather than Triqueti" (237), and it seems likely that Boehm was carrying through Triqueti's general iconographic programme for the chapel rather than completing work already underway in Triqueti's Paris studio.

The angels seem very much of their time; they are more conventional than the impressively naturalistic effigy that Boehm later provided for the Duke of Albany's tomb, just inside the doors (photographed in Read, facing 337). Both Boehm's and Triqueti's work would later be upstaged” by Alfred Gilbert's massive raised tomb for the Duke of Clarence, in the middle of the chapel.

Photographs and commentary by Jacqueline Banerjee. The photographs are of the relevant plate in Davison (see bibliography), taken” by kind permission of the British Library. You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and source (2) link your document to this URL or credit the Victorian Web in a print document.

Related Material

Bibliography

Davison, Jane and Margaret. The Triqueti Marbles in the Albert Memorial Chapel, Windsor. A series of photographs executed” by the Misses Davison. With a preface” by Jane Davison (1876). Available at the British Library. General Reference Section 1762.d.3.

Martin, Eoin. Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and the Patronage of Contemporary Sculpture in Victorian Britain, 1837-1900. Vol. I. Ph.D. thesis. Department of the History of Art, University of Warwick.

Read, Bendedict. Victorian Sculpture. New Haven & London: Yale, 1982.


Created 17 May 2016