Chemistry by Charles Sargeant Jagger, 1828-29 — two views of this giant figure, one of four installed high on the façade of Nobel House (9, Millbank, formerly the Imperial Chemical Industry or ICI building), London. Jagger was commissioned to provide these symbolic stone figures by his patron, Sir Alfred Mond, founder of ICI, when the complex was built in 1927-29 by Sir Frank Baines, as the company's headquarters in Millbank. Chemistry is represented by an older man, dressed in his laboratory clothes, intent on his work with flasks and so forth, within the greater hand of nature. According to Ann Compton in her book on Jagger, the original idea was to have the scientist forcibly prising open the hand to see what it could show (84-85). In fact something of this conception can be seen in the disposition of the scientist's own hands, one pressing back and the other on one of the fingers of "nature." [Click on these photographs to enlarge them.]
Photographs by Robert Freidus, and text and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the source and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite it in a print one.]
Bibliography
Compton, Ann. "Jagger, Charles Sargeant (1885–1934)." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. David Cannadine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Online ed. Web. 1 June 2017.
_____. The Sculpture of Charles Sargeant Jagger. Much Hadham, Herts: The Henry Moore Foundation; Aldershot: Lund Humphries, 2004.
Weinreb, Ben, et al. The London Encyclopaedia. 3rd ed. London: Macmillan, 2008.
Created 1 June 2017