Queen Victoria
Giuseppe Valente
Unveiled 1891
Marble
Republic Square, Valletta, Malta
Valente was a Sicilian sculptor who completed this work in Palermo (see Beltrami). Paid for by public subscription and erected in front of the National Library, the monument was intended to commemorate the Queen's fiftieth jubilee, and shows her with a lace shawl, in reference to the fact that she had ordered "eight dozen pairs long and eight dozen pairs short mitts, besides a scarf" of Malta lace (qtd in Grech 52). According to Jesmond Grech, she did so "in an attempt to revive this ancient craft." Grech also explains that Republic Square is still commonly referred to as "Pjazza Regina" or "Queen's Square" (53).
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