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Title:
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Prince Albert in Order of the Thistle Robes
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Artist: |
Baron Carlo Marochetti
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Aberdeen was one of the first British cities to propose raising a memorial to the Prince Consort after his death on 14 Dec. 1861. Albert had been, in effect, a local landowner, because of the proximity of the royal residence in the Highlands, Balmoral. In 1858, the city council had commissioned from the Scottish painter, John Phillip, a full-length oil painting of the Prince wearing highland costume, attended by a wolfhound, and with a view of Balmoral in the background. The first meeting for the purpose of promoting the memorial was held on 23 Jan. 1862. Among the speakers were the Earl of Aberdeen, the Earl of Kintore, Sir Andrew Leith Hay, Baillie McHardy and Mr Thomas Todd. The Lord Provost of the city introduced the proceedings by referring to the close connection of the Prince with Aberdeen. The Times (28 Jan.1862) reported that already, at this early stage, a considerable sum had been raised towards the commemoration.
Already also, William Theed, one of the royal couple's favourite British sculptors, had started work on his statue of the Prince wearing highland costume, probably based on the Phillip portrait at Aberdeen. A bronze version of this was to be erected at Balmoral in 1867, but it is clear that either the Queen herself, or someone on the Aberdeen committee had thought it an appropriate image for Aberdeen. However, some Aberdonians were evidently opposed to this form of portrayal, The Aberdeen Journal (4 June 1862) insisted it is not surely as a Highland sportsman that we regard the late Prince, and went on, it is as a sagacious far-sighted, patriotic and upright man that his character is revered, and it is as such that we wish to consecrate a monument to his memory. The decision to employ Marochetti was made in camera by the committee at a meeting held in London on 27 April 1862 (Aberdeen Free Press, 16 Oct 1863). The news was slow to leak out. In its edition for 4 June, the Aberdeen Journal greeted the decision, still at this point only a rumour, as a desirable outcome. Marochetti, the paper claimed, is a sculptor whose works certainly do not deserve unqualified approval, as we need go no further to see than the right fore-leg of King Richards horse in front of the Houses of Parliament. But he has the great faculty of expressing power and dignity with simplicity and grace, and such a power is not a common gift of all who practice the plastic arts with success. The official announcement of Marochetti's appointment came following a meeting of the City and County Committee for the memorial in Aberdeen on 16 July 1862. The Aberdeen Journal ((23 July 1862), confirming its previous announcement of this development, admitted that, although it had been supposed that her Majesty wished Mr Theed to be appointed
, that was a consequence of his very fine statue of the late Prince Consort in Highland costume. It also admitted that the critic Francis Turner Palgrave might have recommended Thomas Woolner for the job, but gave the same reason as it had in its previous statement for thinking that there will be on the whole, if not a general approval of Marochetti's appointment, at least less objection to it than there would have been to any other. It had reason to acknowledge possible objections to the choice, having not long previously published a letter signed Lynx, in which it was more than implied that snobbish toadyism had lain behind the selection.
A site on the wooded declivity of Union Terrace, adjacent to Union Bridge had long since been earmarked for the statue. Despite the fact that Queen Victoria, in her own account of the unveiling, stated that this spot, described by her as "rather small, and on one side close to the bridge" had been chosen by Marochetti himself, a statement which is supported by a report in the Aberdeen Free Press 18 July 1862), to the effect that the sculptor was expected shortly to come to the city to decide on the site, all the evidence suggests that Marochetti's intervention was confined to the finer points of positioning and orientation. The statue was reported to be ready for casting on 26 Aug. 1863. The plaster model was beautifully photographed, presumably in Marochetti's studio, by his friend Camille Silvy. The arrangements for the unveiling were thrown into disarray by the Queen's indecision about whether to attend or not. The prospect was painful to her, as she records in her diary, in an excerpt later published in the volume entitled More Leaves from the Journal of a Life in the Highlands from 1862 to 1882. In the preliminary notices of the forthcoming event, planned originally for Friday 9 Oct. 1863, it was stated that the Queen's presence was not guaranteed, but that some members of the royal family would certainly be there. The Queen then had her private secretary, Charles Grey, write to the Lord Provost to say that she would attend, but requesting that the event should be postponed for three days until 13 October. Many people were said to have come to Aberdeen on the Friday, and to have gone away disappointed. The Queen recorded that as the day for the rescheduled event approached she was "terribly nervous, longed not to have to go through the fearful ordeal . Prayed for help and got up early". In harmony with her mood, it poured with rain. A deliberate attempt was made to keep the unveiling low-keyed so as not to jar the Queen's sensibilities. But some of the speakers went on too long, the Scotsman reporting that Her Majesty more than once betrayed manifest and well-justified signs of impatience at the length of the orations. Clearly attention was focussed on her responses, during what was her first official public appearance since her bereavement. The correspondent for the Daily News was especially observant of these.
I fully expected that under this severe ordeal the womans feelings would have got the upper hand, and that a painful scene would have ensued. There was nothing more, however, than a long, anxious, and intent gaze upon the familiar features represented on the bronze, and an occasional movement of the lips, as if the Queen was communing with herself, or engaged in mental prayer. Having dwelt on the statue for a considerable time from one point of view, she walked a little to the right and surveyed it from another a respectful and reverential silence being maintained throughout. Her Majesty then bowed to the people, and entered the club, where she partook of some refreshment.
In the main, Aberdonians appear to have been unhappy with the statue, and Elisabeth Darby and Nicola Smith, in their 1983 book, The Cult of the Prince Consort, emphasise the local dissatisfaction, the only occasion, they assert, on which it was so forcibly expressed in relation to a statue of Prince Albert. Clearly for them, the Aberdeen statue was a sort of dry run for the still more spectacular failure of Marochettis model of Albert for the Albert Memorial. However, if one looks closely at the responses of the local press to the Aberdeen statue these are considerably more nuanced than Darby and Smith allow. Furthermore, both the Aberdeen Journal and the Aberdeen Herald, in their account of the statues less satisfactory aspects, admit that they are merely reflecting the popular view, and both admit that the undeniable artistic qualities of the statue might in the long term win through.
Marochetti showed the Prince in Field Marshal's uniform and wearing the cloak of the Order of the Thistle. The Prince is seated in a throne-like chair, ornamented with the floral emblems of the diffferent parts of the United Kingdom. His left arm rests on the arm of the chair, the left hand holding a scroll, supposed to represent a speech which the Prince had made in Aberdeen in 1859, to the Association for the Advancement of Science. The right arm hangs over the arm of the chair, the hand holding the large plumed hat that went with the uniform. Both booted feet rest on a plain foot-stool, and the tasseled cords of the cloak hang down rather haphazardly between the legs.
The main criticism concerned the Prince's posture, what the Aberdeen Herald (16 Oct. 1863) described as his "spread-eagle attitude". The Herald thought this an undignified posture, one in which, if the Prince had ever adopted it, he would not have wished his memory to be perpetuated. The choice of such a posture seemed to the Aberdeen Journal (21 Oct. 1863) more of an artistic solecism. It was a departure from "a principle of common-sense which cannot be violated with impunity". Furthermore, the paper went on, "when he [Marochetti] draped the statue with a heavy cloak, which concealed the figure, and diminished to appearance the head, proportionately to the apparent breadth of shoulder, in a position in which the idea of proportion could only be restored by a detailed process of verification, he must have miscalculated the angle of sight, and the short processes of popular criticism ". The Journal complained "we have too much of cloak and boots", whilst the Herald talked of "the military trappings and ribbands and bell-pull tassels and ornamental frippery". Some considered the likeness to be a good one, but as both the Herald and the Journal pointed out, the Prince was portrayed as considerably too young for the date at which he had given the speech in Aberdeen.
According to the Aberdeen Free Press (16 Oct. 1863), dissatisfaction with the statue was such that a movement was set afoot to raise a subscription towards the production of another statue of Albert, to be entrusted to the Aberdeen sculptor, William Brodie, and to be erected in "some suitable interior". However, if the intention was to replace the Marochetti statue with another, which was how the Aberdeen Herald (17 Oct. 1863) interpreted the movement, this, in the paper's opinion was not acceptable, since the Queen's having unveiled Marochetti's statue meant that it now possessed "historic import and recalls associations with which Aberdeen can never part". Nonetheless, that Marochetti was not entirely satisfied with his statue was indicated to the Herald, amongst other things, by the fact that he had not been present on the day of the unveiling.
Despite the barrage of negative criticism, both the Herald and the Journal found something to praise in the statue. According to the former, if not one of the "indisputable triumphs of his genius", like the Wellington statue in Glasgow, Marochetti's Aberdeen statue of Prince Albert was "a pretty thing as a work of art", and "certainly improves on acquaintance". The Journal seemed even more convinced that "it will come gradually into permanent favour". The popular response, the paper seemed to imply, was down to what in our time has been described as "the shock of the new". Interestingly the reviewer confessed that his own response to the statue might replicate one he had experienced earlier with Holman Hunt's painting of a subject from Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona (Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus). "We recollect when Hunt's picture........first appeared, we heard nothing but scornful denunciations of it and of all pre-Raphaelite productions. Personally we concurred in the sentiment and condemned the picture. Somehow we went again and again, drawn unconsciously back to look at it, till we grew to like it very much and pay it a visit whenever we have an opportunity". (Aberdeen Journal, 21 Oct. 1863, and Aberdeen Herald, 17 Oct. 1863)
Clearly something of the negative response reached the ears of the royal family. Although Queen Victoria herself was confident of the artistic abilities of her husband's protégé, and found the statue "very fine", and that Marochetti had been "most successful with the likeness", she did nonetheless ask the opinion of her daughter, the Crown Princess, whose words indicate a degree of concern. The princess responded that she could not "see anything about it to find fault with", except that the foot-stool could have been made "a better looking object". Apart from this "trifling detail", the figure was "very fine, very dignified and noble".
Nothing appears to have come of the plan to commission a statue of Albert from William Brodie, but he was later commissioned to produce a statue of the Queen, and this commission was said to have originated in the dissatisfaction with Marochetti's statue. (Dundee Courier and Argus, 21 Sept. 1866) When Brodie's statue was unveiled on 20 September, 1866, it was described by one newspaper at least as having "a far more effective appearance" than Marochetti's Albert. (Liverpool Mercury, 22 Sept. 1866)
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Material(s): |
Bronze
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Medium: |
Unassigned |
Finish: |
- |
Technique: |
Cast |
Genre: |
Portrait Statue (Seated)
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Location: |
Aberdeen, Union Terrace, , ,
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Colours: |
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Year: |
1863 |
Height: |
0 metres |
Width: |
0 metres |
Depth: |
0 metres |
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Key: |
2736 |
Acc. No.: |
2736 |
Col. No.: |
2736 |
Number of views: |
3479 |
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