Sculpture Victorious: the beauty and power of Victorian sculpture

Quirky exhibition at Tate Britain looking at sculpture in the Victorian era.

I found it really interesting and well described and laid out however some of the work was truly hideous. I’ll just say a life sized Elizabeth and Raleigh playing chess with the English and Spanish fleets! Why? However I did come away wanting the giant ceramic elephant from the Great Exhibition!

This was a time of great technological change and I was fascinated by Cheverton’s reducing machine which allowed him to make small copies of sculptures for the home. I was also interested to think about ‘brand Victoria’ and how sculpture was used to promote the image of the Queen.

My favourite section was the one on history and the show included one of the Westmacott life sized figures of the Magna Carta knights. It was billed as the first to be in an exhibition, I wonder how many days it beat its friend in the Magna Carta exhibition at the British Library by! I was also amused as I’d been round the cast galleries at the V&A recently and wondered where Eleanor of Aquitaine had gone, the answer was to this show!

The whole show was beautifully laid out which was best shown in the art and the antique room which set up lovely conversations between the figures in a minimalist room with views through into the more flamboyant room on the Great Exhibition and yes that ceramic elephant. Incidentally if I can’t have the elephant can I have Monti’s Veiled Vestal with the most superb drapery?

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