Left: Whole statue inside the Town House. Right: Close-up of the Queen's face.
Queen Victoria by Alexander Brodie (1829-1867). Unveiled 20 September 1866. Sicilian marble, on a plinth of pink Peterhead granite. 8' 6" high. Originally at the junction of Union Street and Nicholas Street, Aberdeen, in north east Scotland. Moved in 1888, in order to preserve it from the elements, to the foyer of Aberdeen's Town House.
Plaster model of the statue in the Music Hall vestibule.
This was Brodie's grandest commission, the result of the controversy over another earlier statue — that of Prince Albert, by Baron Carlo Marochetti, that had been installed in Aberdeen in 1863: at the meeting to discuss it, a proposal was made "That a colossal statue in marble, of Her Majesty, be erected at the corner of St. Nicholas Street" ("Statue of Queen Victoria"). A public subscription was opened and Brodie was given the commission, subsequently visiting Balmoral for the Queen to give him personal sittings. Helen E. Smailes explains, "The distinctively Scottish character of the statue evolved by royal command, a plaid of royal Stewart tartan being substituted for court robes." After the statue was removed to the Town House, it was replaced by another, cast in bronze, by Charles Birch. Naturally, the later one shows the Queen as a more mature, matronly figure. — Jacqueline Banerjee
Links to Related Material
- Prince Albert, Aberdeen, by Carlo Marochetti
- Queen Victoria, Aberdeen, by Charles Birch
- Victorian Aberdeen
- A Gallery of Portraits in Stone and Bronze of Queen Victoria
All photographs © Colin Smith, originally posted on the Geograph website, and kindly made available on the Creative Commons licence (Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)). [You may use the images without prior permission for any purpose as long as you credit the photographer and the Geograph website].
Bibliography
Smailes, Helen E. "Brodie, Alexander, 1829-1867." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Web. 22 August 2024.
"Statue of Queen Victoria." SilverCity Vault (Aberdeen Local Studies). Web. 22 August 2024.
Created 22 August 2024