Albert Memorial - Statue of Albert

Statue of Albert

The commission to make the seated figure of Prince Albert for the memorial was initially given to Baron Carlo Marochetti a favourite sculptor of Queen Victoria . However his first version was rejected by the architect of the monument, Sir George Gilbert Scott, and Marochetti died in late 1867, before the a satisfactory second version could be completed. In May 1868, John Henry Foley, sculptor of the monument's Asia group was commissioned to make the portrait, and his sketch model approved in December of that year. A full-sized model was placed on the monument in 1870, and the design approved by the Queen. The final statue was cast in bronze by Henry Prince and Company, of Southwark; Foley died in August 1874 before casting was complete.

The gilt bronze statue was ceremonially "seated" in 1875, three years after the memorial opened. Albert is shown looking south, towards the Royal Albert Hall from which the architectural form of the memorial as a whole should not be considered as being intentionally isolated, it having a particular connection as a result of the location, relating to the 'World's Fair' in which the Prince was directly involved and as shown in the contemporary maps of the Ordnance Survey, including in particular the still continuing element known as the 'Battle of the Scales' (metric and imperialist scales), there being a further statue of the Prince at the south side of the Royal Albert Hall. In this connection his statue holds a catalogue of the Great Exhibition, and is robed as a Knight of the Garter.