1904.] on the Queen Victoria Memorial. 541 



Three represented England — Mr. T. G. Jackson, R.A., Mr. Ernest 

 George, and Mr. Aston Webb, R.A. ; one represented Scotland — Sir 

 Rowand Anderson ; and one, Ireland — Sir Thomas Drew, P.R.H.A. 



[Before the designs of the artists were examined, a series of the 

 leading monuments of Europe were thrown upon the screen, in order 

 that the sight of what had been done in modern times by foreign 

 countries and peoples, might better equip the audience for forming 

 a clear judgment in the competition which the Committee were 

 called upon to decide ; and that they might compare this English 

 scheme with what has been done elsewhere by the greatest artists by 

 the most glory-loving and art-loving nation of Europe.] 



The following monuments were taken in order, commented upon 

 and criticised, and were pictorially illustrated upon the screen. First 

 those of Russia : " Peter the Great," vast in size and wonderful in 

 balance, which occupied twelve years in execution ; the " Column to 

 Alexander I." a monolith, 84 feet high, weighing 400 tons, and costing 

 400,000/.; "Nicholas I."; and "Catherine IL," 49 feet high, the 

 finest of the works entirely carried out by Russian artists, though 

 cast by an Englishman. The chief Austrian work, the monument to 

 the " Empress Maria Theresa " (62 feet high), by von Zumbusch and 

 Hasenauer, which occupied fourteen years, and cost 72,500/. ; the 

 French memorials to M. Gambetta and M. Garnot ; the extraordinary 

 model for the monument now being set up to " Alfonso XII.," by 

 Signor Querol, since simplified from the excessively baroque sketch, 

 scarcely to be considered as serious sculpture ; the attenuated Gothic 

 canopy at Laeken, highly decorated but ill-constructed, covering a 

 statue of " King Leopold I.," the consolidator of the Belgian monarchy 

 — were all passed in review. Then followed others. 



The noble statue memorial to the " Emperor Frederick the Great," 

 set up in Berlin in 1851 by the sculptor Ranch — with its horse and 

 rider, its equestrian groups, its reliefs, and its 42 feet of height — is 

 perhaps the finest of all such modern works now in existence. The 

 " National Monument " of " Germania," in the Niederwald, symbolis- 

 ing the unity and strength of the newly established German Empire, 

 cost 55,000/., and occupied six years in construction, the height 

 being not less than 111 feet. The two latest memorials in 

 Berlin are both by Herr Roinhold Begas, the German Emperor's 

 favourite sculptor : the one of " Bismarck " and the other of " The 

 Kaiser Wilhelm the Great," both colossal in size, and both, in spite 

 of all the cleverness displayed, conspicuously lacking in certain 

 qualities which should always distinguish the plastic art. The last- 

 named work, 29 feet high, is backed by a long colonnade — a feature 

 common to the " Empress Augusta " monument at Coblenz (by Pro- 

 fessor Nives and Carlo Schmitz), to the Spanish monument already 

 alluded to, and to Mr. Brock's memorial to Queen Victoria, and by 

 far the most noteworthy of all modern monuments now in existence 

 — the vast national " Memorial to King Victor Emanuel," now in 

 course of erection at Rome. This enormous structure, a vast scenic, 



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