The Albert Memorial

Canopy Interior

The Americas

Asia

Artists

Poets

Fence

Photograph c. 1966 by George P. Landow

The Albert Memorial designed and executed over the decade following the death of the Prince Consort (1861) shows that competent and dignified sculpture, if without subtlety and best seen from a distance, could be obtained when wanted. The podium frieze with its groups of famous men of all the ages, shows Michelangelo in two contexts, as central and chief figure among both the painters and sculptors; yet at that time there were only two men in England who demonstrated in their work any true understanding of his genius, neither of them employed on the Memorial. They were Alfred Stevens and George Frederick Watts.

--Lavinia Handley-Read, British Sculpture 1850-19I4. A loan exhibition of sculpture and medals sponsored by The Victorian Society. London: Fine Art Society, 1968. p. 7.


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Last modified 24 November 2004